Rain
by kage Elric
Summary: Ok here's what, a girl ends up in japan, she ends up in team Kogarasumaru, She's got loads of problems, that eventually effect the team and even the entire AT world, now what, pray tell what can Agito/Akito do to help? Agito/AkitoXOC.
1. Blood and Home

Rain

Chapter 1 – Blood and Home

OoOoO

"Alright everyone, it's lunch…time" Ton-chan never ever got to finish that sentence before everyone was gone.

"Ikki-kuuuuuuuuun, let's eat lunch together!!" Akito said as he hung onto Ikki's arm.

"Ugh, get away from me you fag!!!" Ikki screamed as he tried to shake him off his arm.

Everyone had gone up to the roof to eat like usual. Ikki had asked Kazu to get his lunch for him and ended up being stuck with Akito on the way to the roof, serves him right the lazy bastard.

"Nooooo, I wanna eat with Ikki-kun!!" Akito whined as he hung on tight to his arm, while being swung around the place like a rag doll.

"GET OFF!!!"

"Hey Ringo, shouldn't you go free your husband?" Emily said as she, Ringo and Nakayama walked up to the two of them.

"He is not my husband!!!!!" Ringo screamed, but her facial expression didn't quite match her words.

"Right." The two girls said at the same time, giggling the whole time as they took their seats on the floor and inspected each others bento.

Ringo huffed and puffed the whole way as she walked towards Ikki and Akito. She was 'secretly' very angry about this, or so she thought, the truth was that anybody could tell that she was pissed off.

Ringo sneaked up behind Akito and swiftly switched his eye-patch. Apparently, the two of them hadn't noticed she was there until she did that.

"Ah Ringo!!!' Ikki squealed as he moved to dive on her and 'reward' her for saving him but she just side stepped him and kicked him in the face when he attempted to look up her skirt while he was on the floor "worshipping her".

Agito shook his head as he looked at the bloody mess that was Ikki's face and muttered something along the lines of, "Fucking, stupid crow." And walked away to lean against the rail of the roof.

While everyone else ate their lunch and did their foolishness Agito stood by the railing and looked out at the city below him.

_Agito, shouldn't we eat?_

_We had a big enough breakfast before we got here, besides you just wanna piss off the fucking crow._

_That may be true but…still._

_If we're good then Rika-nee should give us dinner, and if Ikki doesn't fuck up._

_True, but maybe I should handle that huh?_

_Be my guest, but I think I'd rather stay for the rest for the school day._

_Why? That's not like you…_

_I dunno, I just get the feeling that something's going to happen…_

_Ok…_

Their little conversation ended with that as Agito continued to look out at the city, mapping out the different areas he could use to train with his AT and what not.

It was then, at the point that he heard someone scream. He whipped his head around just in time to see that some girl had jumped off the roof a couple metres away from him. It was Nakayama that screamed when she saw her.

Agito quickly looked down at the ground below them and could see the bloody mess she had become.

_Suicide…_

_But why would she do that?! For what reason??_

_Who knows, it's not our business anyway, just forget about it._

Akito pouted inside his mind as Agito began to walk over to the group to hear what they were saying, they had moved to the spot where the girl had jumped.

As he reached them, he could only just barely hear them talking about calling a teacher or the cops. Kazu already had out his phone when suddenly another person burst unto the roof.

The girl had long Auburn coloured, curly hair that reached her knees and was in a low pony tail. She had green eyes and looked to be about Agito's height and probably the same age, about fourteen.

She ran over to the group and violently shoved them out of her way earning her many curses and insults.

But everyone went quiet when they watched the girl suddenly collapse to her knees.

"Hey, uhm, are you ok?" Emily asked stooping down beside her so that they were eye level.

"I AM I OK?? DO I LOOK LIKE I'M FUCKING OK TO YOU!!!!!" the girl screamed in her face, causing Emily to fall backwards unto her butt from shock.

The girl slowly got up waving Kazu's hand away as he offered it for help. The girl wiped her eyes and then suddenly turned a heated glare to the group.

"So you guys were here when she jumped?" She asked, in a surprisingly calm voice.

The group nodded, silenced by her deadly aura.

She seemed to tremble a little bit before exploding, "SO WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU STOP HER?!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?!?!"

"HEY!!! Stop screaming and calm down, shit!!!" Agito was the only one brave enough to talk back to her, all the others were cowering in a corner of the roof.

"CALM DOWN?! CALM DOWN!!! YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN AFTER I JUST SAW MY SISTERS DEAD BODY AND AFTER I JUST FOUND OUT THAT MY PARENTS ARE DEAD, AND THAT THE ONLY LIVING RELATIVE I HAD LEFT HAS ACTUALLY BEEN DEAD FOR FOUR YEARS NOW!!!" the girls voice seemed to just shrivel up as she didn't seem to be able to scream anymore and just settled for cry her eyes out. She once again slid to the floor and buried her face in her hands as she continued to cry.

_Agito, switch with me_

_What why?!_

_Just do it!_

_Alright, alright…_

Agito switched the eye-patch and let Akito take over.

Akito knelt down beside her and said, "Hey, hey everything's going to ok alright. Maybe we should get something to drink; your throat must be dry. Then we can take you to the office, they're probably looking for you."

The girl looked up through her long bangs and nodded lightly, slightly confused as to why he was being so kind all of a sudden but she couldn't focus on that now.

Akito helped her stand and hurriedly grabbed a bottle of water form where they were supposed to be sitting for lunch.

"Here…" Akito handed her a bottle of water and watched as she gulped it down very quickly. "Feel a little better?"

The girl nodded wordlessly then said, "It's ok, I can take myself to the office; you don't have to go with me."

"But in times like these, you need friends don't you? It must be hard for you right, you'll need someone to talk to." Yayoi said with a smile as they followed her to the door of the roof.

"That's right, when I was smaller, and I was having problems with work or anything of the sort, I'd always look to my sisters for help. You should always have someone that you can go and talk to." Ringo pitched in as she walked up to her side.

"We could be those people for you!" Akito jumped up to her side and grinned at her with the most adorable look on his face.

The girl had long since stopped walking and simply stared at them as if they were crazy. "You're all nuts…"

They were about a few feet away from the door to the roof when it opened and Ton-chan came into view. She looked like a scared little rabbit as the wind blew up her frilly skirt and Onigiri dove to the ground to get a peek while Kazu, Buccha and Ikki turned their heads sharply, as if instinct alone told them to look.

"Aaaahh! No!!" Ton-chan tried in vain to keep her skirt down and the girl watch in amazement at how ridiculous the scene was. Soon she couldn't take it any more; this "white pig" was really getting on her nerves. She brought her leg up to her side and drove it straight into his stomach, cracking the floor under him.

The look on his face was precious and she couldn't hold back a sadistic smile as she watched him squirm around on the floor like a strange, deformed worm.

Ton-chan praised her and thanked her for at least ten minutes before actually getting to the point, giving her reason to believe it wasn't worth saving her. Meanwhile the wind blew about her skirt and the boys simply sat and watched for the whole ten minutes, really what was the oint in saving her then.

"Will you, get to the point please, sensei?" Ringo said rubbing her temples as she watched the chaos around her. "Why did you come up her in the first place?"

"Oh, that's right, I was sent to look for you Taishou-san. Ano…where is Taishou-san's twin?" Ton-chan asked with an innocent look on her face.

The girl stared at the floor for a moment as the entire group went quiet. There was a lot of tension in the air, and it made the hairs on the back of Ton-chan's neck stand up. "She jumped…" The girl's words were almost inaudible, but Ton-chan could only just make it out, of course that doesn't mean she understood it.

"She jumped? But where is she now, we need to talk to her. Where did she jumped to?" Ton-chan looked innocently around the group hoping for an answer.

The girl didn't seem phased by her ignorance, and simply pointed to the side of the roof that her sister had jumped from and said, "She's over there."

"Oh, well then I'll go call her!" Ton-chan happily skipped over to the other side of the roof, screaming loudly as the wind blew up her skirt, again, which made the girls sweat drop and the guys, well… "Maybe Ton-chan should get a skirt that doesn't flare so easily…" Ringo said darkly as the other girls groaned their agreement.

They all waited patiently as they watched Ton-chan look around for Hikaru. For a long time they waited and wondered just how clueless she was, but then she screamed and they all sweat dropped when she began to panic and screamed random things about rape and ran across the roof, probably heading to the front office.

"Come on, we'd better head back down there." Ringo said as she and the girls headed to the roof after the guys who had gone chasing after Ton-chan's skirt, well, all except Akito, he was just copying everything Ikki did.

The girl followed them wordlessly, taking a moment to glance back at the other end of the roof and glanced away again quickly, fighting the tears she felt were coming.

"Ah Taishou-san, we were afraid that you'd jumped as well!! Are you alright?" A teacher said as he ran up towards the group. He was the same one that was talking to them earlier.

"I'll be alright." She held her head down and her voice was low.

"Alright, I'm just going to straighten some things out, and then I'll come to talk to you ok." He seemed to be in a hurry as he dashed back into the staff room.

The group stood in silence for a long while. No one seemed to have a clue as to what to say to the poor girl. Akito was the first to break the silence. "So, uhm…what's you're name?"

"You already know my name don't you? You've heard it a thousand times today…" She seemed more pissed rather than sad and gloomy, _Maybe she's one of those people that don't like much attention drawn to themselves…what do you think Agito?_

_I couldn't care less…_

_You're so mean!_

_It's wonderful isn't it?"_

"But we don't know you're full name." Yayoi chipped in with a small smile as she leaned in to get a good look at the girl's half pissed, half sad face.

She seemed to hesitate for a moment before taking a deep breathe and saying, "I'm Taishou Kaoru, it's nice to meet you." She put on a smile for them, thinking that a little optimism couldn't hurt.

"Well, it's nice to meet you Kaoru, I'm…" Yayoi how ever was cut off when Ikki appeared between Akito and her, dramatically introducing himself.

"I am the GENIUS BABY FACE, MINANI ITSUKI!!!" Everyone seemed to have been ignoring him as her ranted and raved about hmself.

"AS, I was saying…" Yayoi had a vein pulsing in her neck as she spoke, obviously trying to hold back the urge to hurt Ikki. "My name is Nakayama Yayoi."

"And I'm Emily!!"

"Kazu here!"

"Onigiri, and as I price for giving you my name, I shall take my prize of…" He didn't even get to finish that sentence as Kaoru landed her fist onto the back of his head, knocking him out cold.

"I'm Akito!!!" All sparkles and flowers as usual, trying his best to stay attached to Ikki's arm.

"Booka…" Was what it sounded like as Buccha tried to talk around the noodles he was slurping down, bowl by bowl.

Kaoru giggled slightly at this. She was slightly surprised that she could manage a true smile at a time like this. She would have to thank them later.

The group continued to converse and Kaoru managed to get out a few more laughs and was smiling most of the time. The truth was that, she was normally never a gloomy person; she was either vexed or happy.

Her mood diminished, however, when the same teacher that she was speaking to earlier with her sister came to the door way and called her inside.

The group stood there waiting for her as they continued to converse, during which time Akito had switched back to Agito.

The group waited about ten minutes, and by that time, news spread through out the school and chaos ensued. The focus point of the chaos was near the back of the school, where paramedics and police officers had gathered at the scene. Students had run out of their class rooms to try and get a look.

Kaoru came storming out of the staff room suddenly, stopping a few feet away from them. She seemed to be in deep thought as she slowly turned toward them.

She sighed and walked back toward the front office and stood beside the door frame. She seemed really vexed and no one knew what to say.

"Listen, to me Child!! You expect to be able to find a place to stay on your own on such short notice, you need our help!" The teacher came out and seemed to be turn between two decisions. He kept looking at Kaoru, who wasn't paying him any attention then looking in the direction of the chaotic school. "Look, Taishou-san, I have to go, the paramedics called up saying that they need to talk to some one so I'm going to go, unless you want to come?" He seemed hopeful.

Kaoru simply stared at him with a blank expression, her anger seemingly melting form her face. He sighed and ran off with one glance back and a pause as if waiting for her to change her mind; she didn't budge; he began to run again.

Kaoru sighed heavily and felt her knees give in under her. She fell to the floor with a dull thud and heard the others crowding around her and asking her if she was ok.

"I'm fine, just a little dizzy." Kaoru said as she fixed herself into a proper sitting position and stretched her legs out in front of her.

"Hey guys, let's go and check out what's going on around the back!!" Ikki spoke up. Everyone agreed with a loud cheer as if they were going to a rally or something.

"But what about you Kaoru, are you coming?" Kazu asked as he realized that she hadn't made a move to get up nor did she respond at all to Ikki's proposal.

"You guys go on ahead, I'll be there shortly." Kaoru said evenly. She looked up and gave them a reassuring smile. She had a lot on her mind and was also very tired. They had all left and she sighed heavily. She would've just gone to sleep there if she hadn't noticed that there was still a presence around.

Kaoru looked up and saw that 'Akito' was still there, but his posture didn't resemble the way he was acting before, it was more like when he was acting all mean and grumpy. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

Agito looked down at her and said, "What?"

"You have a split personality don't you?" Kaoru paused for a moment to see his reaction. He looked surprised, a little, "If the other one is called Akito, then what's you're name?" Kaoru smiled at him, a small distracted smile.

Agito blinked twice before completely comprehending what she said. "…Agito"

"Well, it's nice to meet you Agito." Kaoru smiled up at him and he just couldn't seem to hold her gaze so he settled on staying quiet and looking away. For once Ikki came in handed as he stuck his head around the corner, interrupting whatever conversation she may have been hoping to start up.

"Come on you scaly wags!!! You'll miss all the fun!!" Ikki shouted wagging his butt in their faces from down the hall. A vein pulsed violently in both their foreheads and they both vowed to wring his neck when they got to him, the question now was who would get to him first.

Of course, that prize went to Agito and by the time Kaoru came with in arms reach of Ikki he was already unconscious and falling apart. Agito walked pass her, dragging Ikki's half dead body along with him and said, "Are you coming or not, Shit head?"

Kaoru didn't take lightly to that kind of language around her, even though she used it from time to time, so she retorted, viscously. Agito was blown away by her, not by her volume, even though it should've been what blew him away, but it was just how she carried herself, and how she made her sentences, she did it a way that just made you feel small and insignificant, and she did it so naturally too, like she was born with the gift.

Agito retorted back and they ended up fighting to entire way to the crime scene and somewhere along the way poor broken Ikki was completely forgotten in some lonely, corridor that nobody ever used anymore.

When they got out there, it was a lot more chaotic than they could've imagined. Their own shock silenced them. It was crazy; the grade advisor, Orihara sensei, was talking to some of the paramedics while ordering teachers around trying to get everything under control, students were trying to get around and under the crime scene tape, while cops tried to keep them back, the paramedics that were dealing with the body were standing out side the ambulance with it's sirens still blaring, adding more noise to the chaos.

Kaoru gritted her teeth and pushed her way through the crowd, trying to make it to where the paramedics stood by the ambulance. As she passed Orihara sensei, trying to make sure he didn't notice her, that's exactly what happened. He grabbed her hand and swung her around, eliciting a shriek from her as she swung around to face the paramedic. "Here, talk to her." And then he was gone. He moved way to fast for an old man, that's probably what was going through Kaoru's mind at the time.

"Uhm…" The paramedic seemed more lost than she was and didn't seem like he'd be finding himself soon enough, so she decided to bring him into the light.

"My name is Kaoru Taishou; my sister is the one that jumped."

"Ah, yes, well I'm happy to tell you that your sister is still alive, but, both her legs are broken, her right leg will most likely have to be amputated, she has a concussion, and she's in a coma." He kept a straight face as he listed off her ailments.

Kaoru nodded twice then looked up at him with a burning hatred that he did not deserve, and said, "So basically, my sister's a vegetable with one leg, fabulous."

Kaoru walked away before the man could get her attention and ran out of the crowd, shoving her way through. Kaoru ran for a long time, she didn't know how long, all she knew was that some time later she'd found a park and also found that her legs couldn't take much more so she plopped down on a bench and curled up into a ball, crying her eyes out, half distraught, half relieved.

OoOoO

After all the teachers spent all their energy trying to get the students back into the class rooms, the principal announced over the intercom that school would be ending early for the day and that they could all go home.

All the teachers were frozen with shock and anguish as they watched all their hard work of getting them into the classrooms quickly go up in flames, almost literally.

The group walked as far home together as they could without splitting up, but soon enough it was just Ikki, Akito and Ringo left as they walked through the park.

"Hey, Ikki-kun, where do you thing Kaoru-chan went?" Akito asked him for the millionth time.

"You know, with how many times you've asked that question, I'd take a guess and say that you like Kaoru-chan don't you Akito?" Ringo teased him and pinched one of his cheeks with a wide silly grin on her face.

"Wah!! No, no it's not like that!! I just…" Akito trailed off as he looked away from Ringo and Ikki as they continued to tease him and noticed something in the distance.

Akito blinked and started walking towards one of the benches in the park. "Akito where are you going?" Ringo asked curious as to what he was doing.

"It's Kaoru…" Akito stopped just in front of the bench where Kaoru sat curled up into a ball. Akito moved to place his hand on her shoulder but hesitated a bit.

"Hey you! No need to fear, Ikki is here to save the day!! Here I give my fart of joy that I caught with my hand, may it dissolve all your displeasures!" Ikki just looked ridiculous and kind of scary.

Kaoru's head shot up instantly and Akito gave Ikki a, "you stupid piece of shit" look that he normally would've gotten from Agito. Kaoru looked around at the three of them and was about to get up and run so she could be alone when Ringo said while kneeling down in front of her, "Hey, don't worry it's ok. You don't have a place to stay do you? You can come and stay with us until you find somewhere else, how's that?"

Kaoru furrowed her eyebrows together and said, "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't, but you don't have any other option now do you? No worries we'll take good care of you!" Akito said chirpily.

Kaoru continued to stare at them for a while before sighing and said, "Is that really ok? Just for tonight…?"

Ringo stood up and clapped her hands and Ikki did a stupid victory pose and Akito just copied whatever Ikki did. Kaoru stared at them and had to at least chuckle when Ikki began to do victory dances and Ringo whispered to her that she didn't know him.

The four of them walked to the house and talked on the way. Kaoru didn't say much but she chimed in whenever she felt like. Kaoru found that these people where really crazy but they were fun, and the truth was that, she was actually feeling a lot better. _I suppose, all I needed was some company huh?_

Kaoru's thoughts strayed to her sister again and the smile that was previously decorating her features disappeared. Akito looked over at her and frowned slightly.

He ran over to the other side of the small group and popped up between Ringo and Ikki just as Ringo was about to give Ikki something she'd been planning to give him since the start of the day, you know, something romantic.

"Uhm…Ikki, here, I've been trying to…"

"Hey Ikki-kun, Ringo-chan, can I ask you something? Why don't we let Kaoru join Kogarasumaru, if she's any good at AT?" Akito spoke cheerily and he bounced up and down between them like a little ball of energy.

Ringo was so mad that he had disturbed her romantic scene that she just immediately said no without registering what he said.

"Wah, but why not?!"

"yeah, why not!?" Ikki was just repeating what Akito said with a big ugly pout before he registered what was said, then he said, "Hey, wait, Of course not!!" he dropped his voice to a whisper so that Kaoru couldn't hear, "For one, we don't even know if she's any good at AT, and three, she's a girl!! Girl's are just for support!!" Ikki probably would've continued if Ringo hadn't grabbed him and started strangling him in a neck hold.

"I'm sorry, what was that about girls being just support? Of course she can join if she's good Akito, go ask her." Ringo was twitching with anger and her voice was a little shaking; her expression really scared poor Akito while he watched Ikki gasp and claw for air.

"uhm…ok" Akito slowly stepped back making sure not to disturb her as if she was a great mountain lion having it's meal and he didn't want to disturb it, lest he become desert. Akito hopped over to Kaoru and noticed that she was still spacing out and said, "Hey, you ok?"

Kaoru seemed startled when she looked up at him. "Uhm…yeah I'm fine."

"Good, hey do you ride AT?" Akito asked hoping to hear what he wanted to hear, but what he did hear was quite shocking.

"What's AT?" Kaoru said, looking completely innocent. She nearly walked passed them before she noticed that all three of them had stopped walking and were staring at her. "Wah-what is it?"

"You're kidding right? How can you not know AT?" Ringo looked the most stunned out of all of them and couldn't even talk. "AT is the best thing that has happened to this world! With ATs humans can learn to fly, just like the birds do! AT grants us freedom to do whatever we want, whatever pranks we want to pull and…" Ikki was going to continue but Agito stopped him by shoving a random sock into his mouth and turned to Kaoru.

"What do you mean you don't know what AT is? You've never heard of it?" Agito looked at her with a scrutinizing stare.

"That's what I said." Kaoru was starting to get annoyed with all these questions, why couldn't they just tell her what is was and get it over with?

"Are you from Japan?" Agito asked as he stared at her, noticing one and two things about her appearance, One, her hair looked like it was naturally that curly, it looked almost bushy with how curly it was, two it had natural highlights as if it was burned by constantly being in the sun all the time, they didn't always have sunny whether in Japan. Three she had jade green eyes, hardly found in Japan.

"No I'm not, I'm form Italy, what does that have to do with anything?" Kaoru looked annoyed as she stood akimbo in front of him. It looked as if any wrong move by Agito would cause another fight.

Agito seemed to be lost in thought for a moment and didn't look like he was going to say anything so Kaoru took this chance to ask her question, "So uhm, what is AT anyway?"

It took about ten minutes for Ringo to explain everything, about emblems and about teams and the trophaeum, but when she was done Kaoru seemed to be lost in thoughts.

"So, yeah, that's AT, wanna see?" Ringo ask, "It's a lot easier to understand if you've seen for yourself. Agito…no I think it would be better if Ikki gave a proper demonstration." Ringo looked up at him hopefully.

Ikki grinned and shouted; "Well now it is time!! Behold my awesomeness!!" he put on his ATs and attempted to ride up a tree but he just fell back on his butt and got up shouting about how that was just a warm up all that jazz.

"He's really not this bad; he's just not being challenged so he sucks right now…" Ringo said with a sweat drop. Kaoru stared for a bit, she didn't know what to think _but...that's…_

Kaoru's thoughts were cut off as Ringo went on to talk about Ikki's new team. "The teams name is Kogarasumaru. We were planning on placing our team stickers on tomorrow; do you want to come with us since tomorrows Saturday?"

"Uhm…sure!" Kaoru put on a smile "and also, if it's alright, could you teach me how to ride AT?"

The three of them were blown away by her sudden request. Ringo was surprised and glad at the same time, Agito was miserable as usual, and Ikki felt far too much pride and God he knows why.

"Well, I don't know who would teach you…"

"I'll train her, I will teach her everything I know, she be second to no one, except me of course!!"

"Definitely not Ikki…" Ringo said, a vein twitching on the side of her neck as she listened to Ikki's idiocies.

"Maybe…no way…Agito…"

"Fuck no…" Agito barely gave her a chance to finish as he rode off into the distance announcing that he would be back later.

Kaoru huffed and watched him leave just dying to drive her fist into his face once she got the chance; he just pissed her off whenever he opened his mouth. Kaoru sighed to expel her sudden urge to kill and said, "But don't you ride Ringo-chan?"

"Uhm...well, no I don't ride AT, I'm just here for support!" Ringo was talking a little bit too loud to make it sound natural.

"Right, well then I suppose I'll just have to teach myself huh? Can't be too hard." Kaoru folded her arms and looked up at them. Ikki suddenly burst out laughing and Ringo gave him a dangerous look before giving Kaoru an apologetic one.

Kaoru furrowed her eyebrows and said, "You just watch! I'm gonna learn how to ride all on my own!" She started forward and stopped. She turned around and shouted after them to hurry up.

_Wow, she gets fired up pretty easily doesn't she…?_ Ringo thought with a sweat drop as they walked the rest of the way to their house.

When they got there, Ringo explained to Ume and Mikan about her situation and that she was determined to start doing AT. At the dinner table everyone was talking and having fun except Ikki who was being hung over a small fire for trying to steal Kaoru's meat.

Ringo and Mikan were talking about what next to do to Ikki and Ume was showing Kaoru her doll.

"you see, I'm almost done! And just yesterday I finished making the last of one hundred and one dolls!! I decided to name her Hikaru!" Ume held up the dolls with a strangely twisted smile.

"Really…hmmm…" Kaoru was smiling up until that point. The mention of her sister's name made her mode fall once again.

"Kaoru-chan what's wrong?" Ume asked as she noticed that Kaoru had stopped smiling.

"That's my sister's name…Hikaru." Kaoru was staring at the floor and held her head down, her long messy bang hung to hide her face.

"Oh…" Ume looked a little guilty.

"She was my twin, as you all know, but she was the complete opposite of me, we were nothing alike. Most people would've guessed that I'd be the to jump, not her…" Kaoru sniffed and felt the tears building u in her eyes. She hurriedly wiped them away.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ringo asked as she crawled over to her side form where she sat tormenting Ikki after her had "accidentally" fallen on top of her and fondled her after freeing himself from the pole he was tied to, but now he was covered head to toe with rope except his middle area as he hung over a fire.

Kaoru looked up at her and smiled, she didn't see what harm it could cause, and they were obviously curious about it, even Ikki manage to stop whining and some how got over there, even though he was still covered in rope. "...yeah. Hikaru, she was the opposite of me. I was always playing in the mud with the boys, playing football or rugby, one of them, and she was always playing with her dolls trying to stay as far away from the mud as possible. I always wore all the dark colour and baggy pants and that stuff, while she wore all the pink frilly dresses and what not. But we were close, despite how different we were, no one know us better than we knew each other. We finished each others sentences and in grade school, whenever I had an English test, she'd substitute for me and whenever she had a math test I'd substitute for her. Those were the good days." Kaoru smiled at some fond memory before continuing. "She did ballet, I did karate, we both did gymnastics and swimming but I was better at gymnastics and she better at swimming, we both found that very strange as well as our parents, but hey, that's how it was. She loved Ballet, she couldn't live without, but now her right leg is going to be amputated…she can't dance like that…when she wakes up, she'll be devastated…"Kaoru sighed and sniffed a little before shaking her head and saying, "but anyway, enough of these sad stories…" Kaoru began to wipe away her tears again.

"Fucking cry baby…" Kaoru whipped her head around to see Agito standing at the door way to the living room.

"Gah!!! How long have you been there?!" Kaoru shouted in surprise when she saw Agito.

"Long enough…" He scowled at her which seemed to have hit a bad nerve.

"Really? Now if you would kindly remind me just who were you calling a cry baby?"

"I was referring to you," Agito stepped away from the door way, his body language suggesting a challenge.

"Is that so? I would've thought you were referring to yourself, considering the fact that your eyes are all red and puffy, what still crying over being rejected by Ikki?" Kaoru stepped forward as well, daring him to argue with her.

"Fuck you!! Who the Fuck would cry over that Fucking crow?!" She'd hit a bad nerve there apparently.

"You apparently."

"You piece of shit!! You wanna die!? I'll kill you!!" Agito looked like he was going to explode.

"Is that so, I'd love to see you try." Kaoru just looked calm and collected as she watched him with a sly grin as he continued to fume.

"I'm the fucking Fang King, I'll fucking kill you!!" Agito was about to launch a fang at her when Ringo slammed a frying pan over his head, knocking him out cold.

"Thanks." Kaoru said with a huge grin.

"You know, he could've killed you! You shouldn't play around with him, he's dangerous." Ringo said after she asked Ikki to drag him up to his room.

"Is that so, hmph. I'd love to see him try. He's lucky, any farther and I would've lost my cool, then it would've gotten ugly." Kaoru said all of this with a sly grin.

Everyone sweat dropped at this and wondered if she'd gone crazy after all that had happened to her.

They spent the rest of the evening planning what they were going to do tomorrow and then Kaoru helped Mikan wash up, which ended in just Kaoru washing up and Mikan going to play video games then everyone said good night and went to sleep. Most of them had sweet dreams, but not our main character, poor Kaoru; hardly got any sleep that night.

OoOoO

End


	2. Learning to Ride

Rain

Chapter 2 – Learning to Ride

Disclaimer – I only own whatever you see that is not in the Air Gear manga or anime.

OoOoO

Kaoru couldn't sleep, every time she fell asleep, she'd have a nightmare and she'd wake up again. She sighed and looked over at the clock on the bedside table; it read 4:00 am. Kaoru sighed and stood up out of the bed. The room they had put her up in was the room of their eldest sister Rika-nee who was abroad for her job at the time

She headed towards the bathroom and went inside, opening and closing the door as quietly as possible. She looked around at the foreign bathroom and secretly wondered how everything worked. In Italy, the bathroom normally just had a small showering area, a sink, and a toilet, but this bathroom, had a huge showering area, a medium sized tub at the back of the room, a sink, and there was a drain in the middle of the floor, near to where there was a bucket sitting face down on the floor a little ways away from the sink.

She remembered doing a few Japanese culture classes before coming here and knew that they normally just soaped up and then dumped water over their heads to wash it off, so she did just that.

She then took her personal toiletries that she'd carried with her, (Ikki was subjected to the task of going back to school and getting her bags for her after school yesterday) and headed to the bath tub. She figured that she deserved to be allowed to just relax in a nice hot tub of water filled with sweet smelling essential oils, so that's exactly what she did.

She filled up the tub and poured the bath oils in then stepped in. She could feel the hot water massaging her stiff muscles and felt her skin prickle at the sudden change in temperature.

Kaoru sighed as she sank deep into the tub of water. She felt as if she could just sit there and forget about everything, but she knew that now was the time that she had to face everything that had happened, it was time for her to decide what to do next.

Kaoru sighed and closed her eyes. She ran over the events in her head, one by one, starting from before they left for Japan.

OoO Flash back OoO

"Alright, Kaoru, Hikaru, you two will be going to live with your grand mother for a little while ok; just until this whole thing blows over." Their father said to them as they were packing their bags.

The twins still didn't quite understand why they had to leave for Japan all of a sudden, in the middle of spring. "But Papa, I still don't understand why we have to go." Hikaru whined while she stuffed some underwear in the smallest part of her duffle bag.

"Yeah, I don't get it either." Kaoru said as she stood akimbo beside her already packed duffle bag.

"Don't worry sweetie, we'll explain everything when you come back." Their mother said. She was always very kind towards them, but when they got in trouble, she'd blow a gasket. She'd shout and scream, but never once has she ever hit them, and their father would always just sit back and watch, and when she went a little too far, he'd stop her and hush them before letting her cool off a little then continue. When it was his turn to scold them, he'd calmly let them know what they had done wrong and lectured them on never doing it again; the way how his cool tone would just pierce them like a knife, made them much prefer their mother's screeching.

All they really knew about their parents' current job was that, they didn't enjoy it, and that their boss had made them promise not to tell anyone what it was they did, not even their children.

They always said that they'd get in trouble one day, and Hikaru and Kaoru supposed that that day had come. Kaoru had always suspected that whatever it was, it was illegal, but never dared to say anything. They'd always get scolded for asking questions about what they did during the days, it was strictly forbidden.

"Now, dears, if we don't hurry you'll miss your flight." Their father said with a bright smile on his face as they headed out the front door and to the car.

The drive to the airport was silent; normally the car would be bubbling with laughter and chattering, but the atmosphere around their parents seemed to numb everything, they both felt as if, there was something terribly wrong.

When they got to the airport and their parents were saying good bye to them through the door, Kaoru could've sworn she saw her mother mouth the words, "I'm sorry…"

And then they got here and went to school first thing, because apparently their grandmother was dead, and had been for four years now, but she never told anyone about her son, so they never got the news, then they went through morning classes, then heard about their parents death. They both knew that they hadn't died in any normally car accident, they just knew it, however, Hikaru, didn't seem to want to believe that not only were her parents dead, but they were dead because of something illegal, something that wasn't their fault, something that they would be blamed for when they were not actually the ones behind it. She couldn't stand it…so she did what she did…

OoO End flash back OoO

Kaoru sighed as she remembered everything, she didn't want to think about it, it was too painful, but she knew she had to.

First of all, she knew that her parents would not have done whatever it was that they did to deserve to die unless they were threatened to. And the only thing that could've been held ransom against them would have been their children.

Her parents were the owners of a famous chain of hotels in Italy and were very wealthy, but about a half a year ago, they sold it to the highest bidder and decided on desk jobs instead. Or at least that's what they said, the twins didn't really care that much cause as long as they were together, that's all that mattered. Their parents never spoiled them, so they were ok with the sudden change in their life style, as strange as that sudden change was.

That was just before they went to their senior year in middle school, so they moved to another part of town and a new school followed just in time.

'_They must've threatened to kill us or kidnap us or something to be able to make my parents to do that job, whatever it was. Something must've happened, maybe they were being defiant about something, and they threatened to kill us, which would be why they sent us away…, no…that can't be right._

'_Something's amiss… why would mother have said that she was sorry then if that were it?_

_My parents must've known that they were going to die. Maybe they made a bargain with them, take their lives in exchange for ours. Sounds like something my parents would do, they never did seem to notice how important they were to us._

_They only ever focused on how important we were to them so of course they wouldn't see what it would do to us if they died…look at what happened to Hikaru…and I couldn't stop her…I couldn't…._

Kaoru couldn't think straight anymore. It was too much to bear. She sat there, with her knees pulled up to her chest as she cried into her arms.

OoOoO

Akito sat up in bed and looked around him. He yawned widely and swung his legs over the edge of the bed

Akito made his way to the bathroom and was about to open the door when he heard something strange. He pressed his ear to the door and could hear that someone was crying. _It must be Kaoru, why is she up so early?_

_Just leave her be_

_What, why?_

_Why do you care so much? Besides I don't like her attitude, she's a fucking bitch!_

_Agito you're just being sour because she beat you in that shouting match at school._

_WHAT!!! WHO DO YOU THINK I AM?! I'M THE…_

_Fang king? Yes I know Agito I know_

_Grrrr…_

_I love you too :P_

……

Akito turned back down the hall and decided to go back to sleep.

OoOoO

Kaoru sighed heavily as she stepped out of the bathtub. She'd spent at least a half hour reflecting on the recent events. Kaoru had decided that she'd do some more thinking later, when her head was clear, she was too tired from hardly getting any sleep last night to think straight anymore.

Kaoru put on her long, old, torn up baggy jeans that she loved so much that had messy idle designs all over it, drawn with everything from pen to acrylic paint and a simple well fitted marina with a sleeveless hoody that had a large cross covered in chains on the back.

She walked down the hall and down the stairs. She felt so tired that she could hardly even walk straight. Kaoru flopped down on the couch and had decided to watch TV until everyone woke up, but as soon as her back hit the couch she fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

A couple hours later, at around ten o'clock, Ringo and Mikan woke up and where very surprised to find her sleeping in the couch fully dressed and seemingly ready to go except for her bare footedness.

"Oh the poor thing, I'll bet she couldn't get a wink of sleep last night." Ringo said as she idly poked at her face and jumped back in surprise when she literally lashed out at her in her sleep mumbling something about five more minutes…

"Careful, she's the dangerous type, I can tell already." Mikan said with a smirk as she leaned over to look at her before heading into the kitchen to make some ramen.

"Should we wake her up?" Ringo called over her shoulder.

"Yeah, why not, you were saying something about how she said she wanted to learn AT right?" Mikan said while slurping down some ramen that hadn't even finished cooking yet.

"No, she wants to see it. She's never seen AT before apparently." Ringo said stepping away from Kaoru to get some milk out of the fridge.

"What?! You've gotta be kidding me, never heard of AT?! Is that even possible?" Mikan looked aghast, and nearly spilt her bowl of ramen.

"It seems so…" Ringo finished her glass of milk and walked over to Kaoru and gently shook her. "Kaoru-chan, it's time to get up."

"fmhhh…fhmph.."

"What?"

"Fuck Off…"

Ringo sweat dropped and decided to try again. She was about to shake her harder this time when Ikki came barrelling down the stares dragging poor, half-asleep Agito with him.

"GATHER 'ROUND CHILDREN! GATHER 'ROUND!! IT IS TIME FOR I, THE GREAT MNAMI ITSUKI TO DEMONSTRATE TO THIS, YOUNG AND IGNORANT…"Ikki's little speech was however, cut off when both Kaoru and Agito seemed to have had enough.

"Shut the Fuck up!!!" Agito shouted while driving his knee into Ikki's stomach, mean while:

"Fucking Shit-house!!! I'm trying to sleep!!" Kaoru screamed while she drove her heel into his groin.

Ikki doubled over in pain and crawled to an unnaturally dark corner of the living room and cried silently for his 'family jewels', while Kaoru went back to sleep as if nothing had happened and Agito flopped down on the couch beside Kaoru's feet.

Mikan and Ringo would've just left Ikki alone if he hadn't tried to steel the bacon they were cooking for breakfast. After that, they hung him outside by his shirt and his pants were halfway down, they also stuffed a piece of raw meat in his mouth, saying that if he wanted meat so badly then he could have that.

By the time breakfast was finished cooking, Ume finally made her way down stairs. She looked so cute in the mornings when she was still sleepy. She came in and was about to sit in the couch when she noticed that Kaoru was sleeping there.

Suddenly, her cuteness disappeared and she glared darkly at Kaoru wondering why she was taking up all the couch space. "Why is it that this person is taking up all of Shiraume's couch space?"

Ringo and Mikan stuck their heads out the kitchen door and Agito just smirked wondering what she was going to do next, and also what was for breakfast, he was hungry.

"Um…well…" Ringo didn't get to finish when Ume pulled a scissors from seemingly no where and said, "If she doesn't move soon, Shiraume will give her a nice hair cut…"

Ringo gulped and ran over there and told Ume that she would wake her up now. Ringo shook Kaoru violently in a hurried attempt to wake her up and nearly fell over unto her butt when Kaoru lashed out at her while shooting up into a sitting position. "The Fuck!!...oh sorry…what time is it?" Kaoru rubbed her eyes and yawned widely while looking around at all the shocked faces. There was an uncomfortable silence for a while.

Mikan was the one to suddenly break the silent with a very strange, and very random statement, "You know what, I like you Kaoru, you aright with me." With that, she nodded to her once and headed back into the kitchen to put the plates on the table.

"uhm…thanks…" Kaoru wasn't sure what to say and just settled for taking a look at the clock instead, it was currently ten fifteen. Kaoru groaned as she noticed that she only got about five hours of sleep if so much.

They all ate breakfast at the table and of course Ikki was subjected to eating only a few none substantial food items, and of course he tried in vain to obtain meat from someone, every time he tried, he failed, and every time he failed, he lost more food, in the end he ended up with no breakfast and no energy.

"So Kaoru are you ready to go?" Ringo asked when they both finished washing up, Kaoru had offered to help.

"What? Go where?" Kaoru dried her hands in a towel and walked into the living room with Ringo. When she got there she noticed two things, or rather two people that were missing, Ume and Agito. "Where are Ume and Agito?"

"Ume's, probably in her room and Agito probably left ahead of us, he's a bit of a loner, doesn't really talk much except when he's cursing someone." Ringo said while Kaoru sweat dropped.

"Yeah, I could've figured that last part." Kaoru snorted slightly at the memory of their little spat last night, that fight was actually a breathe of fresh air for her, it reminded her of the days when she would argue with her old friends back in Italy just for fun to see who could beat her in an argument. The only that could do it was either her sister, who knew everything about her or her parents, who had a truck load of leverage to use against her. Kaoru smiled at the fond memories and figured that today just might be a good day for her.

"We're going out so that you can see Air Treck for yourself." Ringo said with a big smile as they, Ikki, Ringo and Kaoru, headed out the door.

"Here, hop on." Ringo said as she got on her scooter and motioned for Kaoru to stand behind her. Kaoru did as she was told wordlessly, she was paying more attention to Ikki's shoes. "Those are ATs." Ringo said when she followed Kaoru's line of sight.

They started off and Ringo began to explain how the ATs worked, all that talk was boring Kaoru so she just settled for tuning her out and just watching Ikki skate along side them. He was terrible, tripping everywhere and he could hardly run straight, but it was still fascinating.

"well I suppose you'll understand it better when you try it for yourself, that is…if, you want to…" Ringo looked behind her at Kaoru and was slightly surprised to see her with a very excited expression as she vigorously nodded her head.

"Can you teach me how to ride AT? Please!!! It seems like so much fun," Kaoru paused her and her large grin dimmed down to a small smile, "like I could just escape into my own little world, my own sky. I could just escape form this world, from the pain of loss, from the suspense, will she live? Will she die? I want to get away from all this…That's why I want to learn how to ride, it want to just fly away from all this pain and suffering," Kaoru had a faint smile on her face as she spoke, as she gazed upward towards the sky that seemed so far away to her. "But I can't do that can I? I can't run from it, I can't escape my fate …" her gaze fell to the floor as she spoke.

Ringo's expression was one of pity, she felt so sorry for her, and she couldn't imagine what she must be going through. "But you know what, it doesn't even matter! I'll pull through you'll see!! My parents always said that I was a bulldozer that could drive my way through anything life through at me." Kaoru grinned widely as she spoke.

Ringo and Ikki were slightly surprised by her sudden out burst but they smiled along with her. "Fall seven times, stand up eight…that's what they say anyway." Ikki said as they kept riding.

They met up with Agito at the shop as Kaoru was trying on her first pair of ATs. He waltz in with an air of arrogance as per usual and stood up beside Ringo and looked down at Kaoru as she strapped up her ATs. He snorted and said, "You can't be serious? You seriously think you have any talent, or any skill, Fuck? What makes you think you're worthy enough to where ATs?"

Kaoru paused in her action and looked up at Agito and glared at him for a while before answering him. "What makes you think you're worthy enough to speak to me?"

"You're running from my question. You might as well just take those off right now before you get hurt little girl."

"Agito!" Ringo didn't like the way things were going.

"Well look whose talking, your just about as small as I am, if anything I'm slightly taller than you, pip squeak."

"Fuck! What did you just call me?"

"You heard me, I called you a…"

"Fuck it! I'm challenging you to an unofficial parts war. If I win, then you give me those ATs, if you win, then…" Agito stopped to think for a moment, and felt confident enough in that she would most definitely not win so he said, "I'll do anything you want."

"Oh really? Is that so…hmmm, I think I'll take you up on that challenge."

"Agito, just wait, wait a minute!! She probably doesn't even know what parts war is!!!" Ringo said trying to sign language to Kaoru to say no at the same time, even though she'd already agreed to it.

Agito completely ignored her and said, "Tonight, eight o'clock sharp in front of the crow's house." He glared dagger's at Kaoru for a spilt second then stormed out of the store, kicking up lot's of dust in his wake.

Kaoru shoved her middle finger into the air after and said, "FUCK YOU!!" And she was sure he heard her because a very sharp stone suddenly turned the corner, yes, turned the corner and whizzed right passed her left cheek.

Kaoru didn't even flinch as she felt it carve a shallow slit on her left cheek, she just kept glaring after him, even though she couldn't see him any more. She eventually turned to Ringo and said, "So, what is his Parts War anyway?" She stood akimbo and stared at Ringo and Ikki.

Ringo looked vexed and Ikki looked angry and annoyed. "That Bastard, challenging you, a new born chick to such a fierce battle. He has no honour as a storm rider!" Ikki said throwing out his chest as if to say, 'he is no storm rider, but I am'

Kaoru just blinked and said, "right…yeah, Ringo, care to explain to me. And can we make it quick, I'm gonna have to start training now to be ready for tonight." Kaoru folded her arms and looked expectantly at Ringo.

Ringo stared at her for a while and then shook her head and said, "listen, this is ridiculous, there's no way you can beat Agito. He's an A Class rider, he has skilled you won't obtain in the next couple of years! This is insane!" Ringo tried to convince her, but their was no swaying her, she was much too stubborn.

"Listen, you just teach me how to ride, explain to me this whole Parts War thing so I can understand it, and then I'll deal with the rest of it, ok." Kaoru said, her tone clearing suggesting that would not be told otherwise.

Ringo sighed and said, "Fine then, common, you'll understand better if I show it to you." Ringo said walking out of the store and getting back on her scooter. "Why don't you try to run with us in the mean time, until we get their?"

Kaoru nodded and felt her heart suddenly jump into her throat and she unlocked the wheels of her AT and tried to move forward. The engines suddenly kicked into life and shot her forward. Kaoru let out a small screech as she suddenly shot out of the store's front doors and had to skid to a halt, falling on her side, in order to not careen into traffic.

Ringo hurried over to her, panting slightly with Ikki at her heels and said, "I was trying to tell you to not put too much pressure on the wheels. Jeez! Are you ok?" She offered her hand to help her up.

"I'm great, I'm good..." Kaoru stood up and dusted off her butt and said, "Let's go, come on." She grinned and skated a little ways ahead of them.

Ringo stared after her and noticed how quickly she picked up on how to run. She no longer reminded her of Ikki at all. Ikki was good in the beginnng but he didn't get the hang of running striaght for weeks but Kaoru got the hang of it instantly. Ringo forrowed her eyebrows before beckonning Ikki to follow while he gawked at her sudden skill.

Ringo jumped on her scooter and followed her. "So Ringo, i'm guessing that you're the one that's gonna be training me right?"

Ringo blinked, she was lost in thought at the time then Kaoru brought her out of her thoughts. "Yup, that's right." Ringo smiled and decided to over look it and just settle on it being that she was just extremely talented.

They spent the whole riding around practicing tricks and pulling pranks. By the time it was seven thirty, Kaoru and Ikki were exhausted. They stopped at an ice-scream store to get some ice-scream before heading back home. On the way Ringo turned to ikki and said, "Hey Ikki-kun, why don't you invite Kaoru to join Kogarasumaru?"

Ikki turned to her looking as though he could kiss her. Throughout the whole day, Kaoru had been showing trimendous talent and looked like she be a very valuable team member. "That's is genius!!! Yes, but first, she must prove that she is willing and worthy to be a part of our grandious, spectacular team!!"

"What the hell is he going on about?" Kaoru said turning the Ringo with a quirked eyebrow.

"Hey's saying that if you wanna join his team then you have to pass a test." Ringo said to her.

"And just who told him that i wanna join his team anyway? Pssh, please..." Kaoru while the were talking they had stopped riding, but now Kaoru kicked her At's back into to gear and headed towards the house, visable on the horizon ahead of them.

Ikki's mouth fell open as a big needle stuck out from where her words peirced his chest. Ringo looked over at Ikki and sweat dropped as he went on about how she dared to refuse such a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Ringo just sighed an followed Kaoru to the house where she could rest up, freshen up and get ready for Agito challenge.

OoOoO

End


	3. Deals

Deals

Disclaimer – I only own whatever you see that is not form Air Gear manga or anime.

OoOoO

After Kaoru took a shower, took a ten minute nap and stretched out and stuff she headed out to the front of the house where she saw Agito leaning against a wall, waiting for her.

When he spotted her he smirked and said, "Fuck, I'm a little surprised, I would've bet my ATs that you were gonna chicken out." Walked over to her with a menacing look on his face to go with his menacing tone.

"Well, then you'd better hand them over now don't you think?" Kaoru said with a tone just as menacing as his.

Agito just smirked and said, "Well, then let's get started."

"Hey wait a second, you haven't even told me what we're doing!" Kaoru said shouting after him before he got too far.

"Let's put it this way, if you can keep up 'til we get back home, then you win." Agito grinned and suddenly speed off into the distance.

"AAAH!!!! NO THAT'S NOT FAIR!!!!! Cheater!!" Kaoru pouted as she sped up and headed down the street she thought she saw him turn down.

She caught sight of the end of one of the strings hanging from his pants turn right and so she followed suit. What she saw next made her vow to make him do something he'd regret for the rest of his life when she won. She watched as Agito rode up the wall leaving a scratch the shape of a 'C'. He did some type of back flip and landed on the roof of the building and continued forward.

Kaoru raced alongside him on the ground but had to skid to a stop when she came face to face with a dead end and watched as Agito soared over the gap on the roof tops and out of sight.

"…bastard…" Kaoru mumbled as she examined the wall. It wouldn't make any sense to try and find a way around it because she didn't know her way around, so she'd just get lost and that would put him further in the lead.

"The only way to go is up…" Kaoru sighed, but then she grinned as an idea came to mind. It was crazy, and probably would never work if she herself wasn't crazy. Kaoru stepped back a few paces and steeled herself for the outcome, whether it be good or bad.

She pressed down hard on her ATs and blasted forward. The alley way was completely shielded off except for at the end of the alley where the roof opened up to reveal the sky. The space as about six feet wide, more than enough space, but the roof was about eight feet tall, it was a stretch, but she had to give it a try. Just as she reached the wall, Kaoru kicked her leg forward, straight in front of her and cringed as she felt it hit the wall hard, but smiled a grin of victory as she felt her ATs dig into the wall and propel her up the wall at a ninety degree angle. She knew it wouldn't last long and could feel the pull of gravity, trying to take her back down to the ground where she belonged, but she just couldn't have that now could she.

Kaoru kicked off the wall and flipped over just in time so that her feet landed on the other side of the wall, just over the line where the roof started. She knew that she wouldn't be able to go up like she did before again, so instead she kicked off again and aimed for the edge of the roof on the other side.

Kaoru grunted as she landed harshly on the edge of the roof where it dug into her stomach. She climbed up to the top and took a moment to catch her breath.

When she looked up she was surprised to see Agito standing there, looking just as surprised as she was.

They stared at each other in silence for a minute, but then Kaoru's head cleared of all the pumped up adrenaline and she realized that he was actually sitting there, wondering if she could even get up here. Kaoru grinned and said, "So, does this mean I win?"

Agito seemed to snap out of his stupor and put a sly grin on his face. His expression told her that he wasn't joking around anymore. She gave him the same look and motioned for him to go ahead so she could follow.

Agito scuffed and shot off again, this time he shot off in the completely opposite direction and went over the gap that she had just come up from and to god knows where, he disappeared for a moment.

Kaoru got a running start and found that the ATs Actually had their own spring to help you jump, but it didn't really help much because it threw her off balance and nearly off the narrow roof top, but she managed.

She however nearly crashed into Agito when she suddenly fell from one roof top to the next. It was so sudden that it elicited a scream from her lungs as she landed but fell to her knees on impact, completely unprepared for that sudden drop.

Agito laughed and said, "Fuck, if you can't even handle that, how do you expect to handle this one?" Agito pointed down from his roof top to where she could see the rest of town. They were apparently on top of some hill, and if they were to jump off this roof top, it would be one hell of a long fall, and to her shock, that's exactly what Agito did next.

Kaoru's mouth fell open as she watched Agito fall then do some sort of twist and flip then land on a roof top and skidded to stop, apparently waiting for her.

Kaoru took a gulp then thought, _hey, what the hell, why not right? It might kill me but hey!! No pain no game right!! Besides, it looked like fun…_ Kaoru thought and soon a wide grin formed on her features.

She stood up and looked over the edge and took a breath. She needed something to calm her down. Kaoru turned on the headphones she had around her neck and put her IPod chip in it and selected one of her favourite songs to play loud enough for her to hear it without actually putting on the headphones.

She took a breath and began to sing with the song before she chucked off the edge.

Agito was surprised she'd actually tried it and wondered just what the outcome would be. Akito was kicking up a storm in his head, screaming about how this was dangerous, and about how she might break something or worse.

…

_Hey, are you listening to me?! This is dangerous!!! Agito…_

…

Kaoru's body seemed to know exactly what to do, Kaoru moved to the speed of the song playing which was "Big Machine" by Velvet Revolver. She did flips and twist in the air as she laughed throughout the whole trick.

It was a 'B' class trick at least, but she did it with ease, the only thing she had to work on was her landing. She managed to land on her feet, but her feet slipped on the roof and she started to tumble.

"SHIT!!" Agito shouted as he raced forward to catch her before she fell. By the time he reached her she was hanging off the edge of the roof with one hand, but she was laughing.

She seemed alright so Agito just stooped down in front of her and waited for her to do something; he wasn't going to help her up, no way.

Kaoru calmed down a bit, and then decided to show off a bit. She and her sister had been doing gymnastics since they were little. Kaoru used both her hands to pull herself up into a hand stand and then one by one slowly let her legs fall back down and stood up straight. She turned to Agito as smiled.

He'd stood to watch her, with wide eyes. His eyes narrowed a bit before he said with a smirk, "Hmph, not bad, but see if that'll help you from now on. That was just the trial, now is the real thing."

Agito shot forward much like he did before, but he didn't stop and wait for her like he did before when he'd jumped off the roof and grinded down the railing of the side walk of the road below.

Kaoru grinned and shot forward, she copied him but instead missed the railing and just landed on the floor, but she was off balance, and almost crashed into a parked car, but managed to swivel around it with a sudden rush of adrenaline.

She followed Agito at top speed, but still couldn't seem to quite catch up to him. She watched as he suddenly seemed to have his feet kicked out from under him, but he was really skating horizontally in order to go under a passing truck without having to have to stop. He stood up straight again and made a sharp turn to the left.

Kaoru grunted as she felt herself arm scrape against the ground as she had to put her whole body into the turn in order to follow. Kaoru watched in amazement as he literally jumped straight up unto the top of a step ladder and then race up the railing.

Kaoru opted to just skate up the railing, but found it much harder than she though dew to how steep it was and lost time, and ground. She cursed under her breath as he raced across the roof tops, jumping from roof to roof doing tricks every now and then.

Despite how hard this whole thing was, Kaoru was having the time of her life, and she couldn't help but notice that not only did Agito not seem to be having much fun, he wasn't even smiling, he had a very serious look on his face.

"Now that just won't do, I'm here to have fun damn you!" Kaoru said to herself as she sped up and actually managed to catch up to him.

Kaoru was about to jump unto his back when she felt the sudden down pour of water hit her full force.

"Shit!!!" She could hear Agito shout as he skidded to stop, almost skidding off the roof due to the excess water on the surface.

He had however miscalculated how far behind him Kaoru was and so wasn't expecting her to try and skid to a stop as well but only to skid straight into his back and knock both of them off the roof.

They landed with a harsh thud and a cry of 'Fuck'.

"Ah, I'm sorry! Are you ok?!" Kaoru asked she moved from on top of poor Agito as he clutched his poor stomach where she'd landed.

"Just shut up!" Agito said as she stood up and sighed, he hated when the rain did this, and in the middle of his riding too.

"So you're ok, well then let's go!" Kaoru said with a smile as the rain beat down on her head.

"No way, there's no way I'm gonna babysit you through the rain, there's no way a newbie like you could handle riding in this rain.

"I don't care, we've been doing dangerous stuff all day. So what if it's more dangerous, so what you care now whether or not what you put me through is life threatening?"

Agito opened his mouth to retort but then shut it again, he performed these steps twice before they were interrupted.

There was a sudden gust of wind, Agito and Kaoru swivelled their heads in the direction that it came from and saw that there stood five men in black tuxedos and wearing ATs.

"Who the hell are you? This is Kogarasumaru's turf, fuck off!!" Agito said as he stepped in front of Kaoru in a half protective, half agitated stance.

"Oh that's not exactly what we're here for, we do not wish to waste our time with such a minor and insignificant F class team. We are here to offer a proposal to the one standing behind you." One of the men stepped forward and raised his head with a small slanted smile. Kaoru's eyebrows knitted together. She had a feeling of what this was about.

"Wha…" Agito was about to trace them off for calling him insignificant but Kaoru cut him off.

"What do you want?" Kaoru stepped beside Agito and held onto his hand behind her back silently asking him to calm down.

Agito fell silent on the slight pressure on his hand, but he went silent not because she asked him, but because he was trying hard to resist the urge to grope her bottom, which was actually touching his hand. Damn those male hormones.

"As I said, I wish to offer a proposal…"

"Get on with it!!" Kaoru snapped, if this had to do with her parents, and if it meant she'd get answers then she want them quickly.

"I propose that in exchange for that valuable item that your parents left for you, we will not kill your sister."

"…What the _fuck_ are you talking about!?" Kaoru was completely clueless. She had no idea what he was talking about, her parents never left anything to her sister and herself, at least if they did, then she didn't know yet.

"I think you know very well what I'm talking about." The man said, he then pulled a small folded piece of paper out of his jacket and handed it to her.

Kaoru hesitated for a moment, and then took it. She unfolded the piece of paper and frowned. _It's a picture of the pair of necklaces that my parents gave my sister and I for our birthday a couple months ago. What does this have to do with anything?_

"There is only one in existence. All the others were destroyed in the inferno, along with the lives of the rest of the team, all except for two. Only two survived that fateful day." The man spoke, but Kaoru didn't understand a word he said, Agito seemed to know exactly what he was talking about however.

He suddenly grabbed the paper from Kaoru and his eyes widen to the size of saucers. "Fuck that, it's only a legend!!"

"It was branded a legend in order to sweep it under the carpet as best as possible. It was the first incident in which lives were lost because of AT." These words made Kaoru's heart jump.

She looked over at Agito with a confused expression, begging him to explain.

Agito caught her look and sighed. "There was a team, known as the "Sleeping Forest", they owned the AT world, and were always at the top. There was, however, one team, that posed a threat to their title. That team was called," Agito was cut off by the man as he took the piece of now soaking wet paper back from him.

"'Singing Rain'. That team was their biggest rival. They were rivals for months on end and were planning on a big battle to see who would be at the top, and which team leader would be labelled 'Sky King'. They fought, and the fight was…disastrous. It ended with both teams being rendered helpless and everyone except two members from 'Singing Rain' died in a large inferno that erupted sometime during the fight. The members of "Sleeping Forest" were mostly rendered unable to ride or even walk anymore, but even with that, they were the lucky ones.

"After that, the last two members of "Singing Rain" disappeared and they became a legend, and now, no one even believes that they exist." The man shook his head.

"I still don't see what this has to do with me." Kaoru said with a stern look on her face.

"The object that I just showed you, is"Singing Rain's" Emblem."

"Their what?"

"You speak as if you know nothing of AT." The man said with a haughty expression.

"That's because I don't!!" Kaoru snapped testily.

One of the five in the group made a mocking sound of offence and whispered something she couldn't catch to the other one beside him. That guy shook his head at the guy and smacked him on the arm.

The other man looked at him with a hurt expression but cooled down and went back to staring in front of him. For some strange reason the second man, or rather, boy, looked very familiar to her, and he looked away from her quickly when she looked at him.

"A team's Emblem, is its prized possession as well as its visage. Teams bet their Emblems when they go to war in what's called the "Parts War". You can bet anything from territory to AT parts on the parts war. When a team bets its Emblem, if they lose then the other team is allowed to wear that Emblem to show that they had victory over that team, and as well, that team will have to disband." Agito said as he thought over everything the man said.

"Exactly, now that everything has been explained, how about you hand that over now?" He said his expression haughty again.

"No."

The man sighed at her blatant refusal. "Alright then, how about this, when you're in a team, we will propose a parts war. If we win, then we get the Emblem."

"And if I win, you promise not to harm Hikaru."

"Of course, and we will be betting Emblems as well I presume?"

"Of course."

"Then it's a deal now is it?" The man smiled and held out his hand for

Kaoru to shake it but Kaoru instead stuck out her tongue while holding up two 'thumbs up' and motioned for Agito to follow her.

The men sweat dropped and were about to leave when Agito stopped them, "Wait, what's you're teams name?"

The apparent leader turned around to them and smirked before saying, "Red Fraction." They then departed in another gust of wind.

"So, just how the fuck did your parents end up with the Emblem for "Singing Rain"?" Agito asked as they walked to the house.

"I don't know, and if you don't mind, I'd rather not think about it right now, my head hurts, I just wanna sleep." Kaoru sighed as she rubbed her temples.

"Whatever, shit." Agito mumbled, unable to believe that she could just brush something like this off like that.

"So…I think I deserve a little time to think about what I'm gonna make you do now before we head inside…" Kaoru said with an evil grin just as they reached the door.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You're the one that said that you would do anything I asked if I kept up with you 'til we reached the house. Well here we are! So what shall I have you do huh?"

The look on Kaoru's face scared him as he mentally berated himself for forgetting about it. Akito also laughed at him for being so silly, which would've earned him a kick in the nuts if he was any other person…and if they didn't share the same body.

"Alright, I've decided that if it ever rains whenever we're training, then you and I are going to go ride in the rain!! How's that?" Kaoru grinned from ear to ear as she said this.

Agito's jaw would've dropped as a sign of his speechlessness if he wasn't who he was, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me…" He was going to continue but thought of how he was lucky hat it wasn't anything worse, so instead of cursing like he planned he simply said, "Your crazy…"

"Yeah I know…" Kaoru knew that he'd submitted to it when he didn't start to complain and whine about it.

Agito pushed past Kaoru into the house with a string of curse words following him like a tail.

Kaoru walked in behind him and laughed as she watched Ikki tackle Agito crying for his "Precious little shark boy slave" _…Wait that doesn't sound right…precious? I wonder what he wants…_

Kaoru's assumptions were right. Ikki did want something from Agito.

"The fuck is wrong with you! You fucking piece of crow-shit!!" Agito screamed as he kicked Ikki off of his leg.

Ikki stood up and suddenly looked serious, "This is my problem!!" Ikki shoved a small sticker in his face. It was red and black with the words "Red Fraction" printed on it. It looked like a team sticker.

"Shit…" Agito said as he took a closer look at it and knew that there must be more posted around the area.

"What, what's up?" Kaoru asked as she noticed that they both looked serious and that everyone from the team was there as well.

"When anther team posts their team sticker over yours in your territory, then it means war." Agito explained shortly. He looked at her with a questioning look then said gave her the sticker to look at. "What are you going to do?"

Kaoru looked at the sticker for a moment and thought about it. She looked up and turned to Ikki and said, "Hey, ikki…I think I'll join the team after all."

All the members of the team except for Agito looked up in shock. They all looked as if they'd just swallowed some girl's panties, half excited and half disgusted.

"Only on one condition!! You must strip down bare every time there is a match!!"

"It would be inappropriate to let a girl join the team, she could get hurt…"

"No way, we don't even know how good you look…I mean are!!"

"I see you have seen the error of your ways!! Now swear your virginity to my awesomeness!!"

All this was said simultaneously so Kaoru couldn't catch any of, which was lucky for them, but Agito however, knew exactly what was running through their heads.

"Look it dipshits!!! It's yes or no!!! Now stop your shitty squabbling, you fucking ducks!!"

Ikki suddenly appeared in a samurai outfit and a sword and said, "You must first pass my tests of worthiness!" while the others mumbled their insults and made faces at Agito behind Ikki's back, Onigiri in particular tried to get a sneak peak at Kaoru's panties, only to be disappointed by the fact that she was wearing pants, so he settled for trying to look up her shirt…stupid man.

Onigiri was out cold for the rest of the day while the others discussed what her trial would be.

Her trail was decided and it is…not for you to know 'til the next chapter.

OoOoO

Hah cliffy!!!!!!!! =P


	4. Visits and Trials

Visits and Trials

Disclaimer – I only own whatever you see that is not in the anime/manga Air Gear.

OoOoO

Kaoru agreed to her challenge and spent all of Sunday training for it. Although she only had one day to train, she was already at the top of her game.

Akito was secretly watching her from his room window as she dashed around the house and attempted different skills and tricks. She showed promise and had a lot of potential. The way she rode, you could tell she was trying to forget, just to forget about everything, life reality, gravity, physics, she defied everything when she was ready, she wasn't that good yet, but he could imagine her being that good soon enough.

He watched her as she rode around the house, marvelling at how much she seemed to be enjoying herself. He could've sworn that one and two times she must've forgotten about the training and was just having fun.

She'd been training from eight o'clock in the morning, and it was now noon. Akito decided that he'd go down and ask her if she was hungry.

Akito climbed down the stairs and skipped to the front door. "Akito-kun, where are you going? It's almost lunch time." Ringo said as she glanced away from Deko King.

"I'm going to ask Kaoru-chan if she's hungry." Akito called back as he stepped through the front door.

Akito closed the door behind him and smiled brightly as he watched Kaoru sore past him without even realizing he was there. He grinned as he thought of how much more beautiful she was up close and had the urge to just tackle her, but decided against it. She didn't seem like the tolerant type.

Akito waited until she came around to the front before calling her name and watching her skid to a stop just in front of him.

"Oh! Hey, Akito, what's up?" Kaoru was out of breath. She stood in front of him, bent over with her hands on her knees.

"Lunch is almost ready. Maybe you should come in and eat with us." Akito ran a hand through her hair and giggled slightly as a lock of hair almost curled itself around his finger. It got knotted and he had to carefully pull it apart to get it off. "You've been training since morning, aren't you tired or at least hungry?"

"Nah I'm fine…" Kaoru said taking in a deep breathe as she straightened up and stretched. Akito raised an eyebrow as he listened to her stomach grumble in the middle of her stretching.

She froze for a moment, then laughed sheepishly and scratched behind her head saying, "Ok, maybe I am a bit hungry…" She had a light stain of pink on her cheeks and Akito found that he liked that.

_I'll have to find ways to cause that more often…_

_You are a sick bastard you know that_

_WHAT!!! How could you say that!!! I'm passionate!!! There's a difference!!_

_Whatever…_

They walked into the house with Akito hanging off her arm and burying his nose in the crook of her neck, which made it hard to walk so she shoved him off when they reached inside while switching his eye patch.

There was only so much of Akito that she could take at once, but with Agito, they could fight for days on end and she'd never get tired of it. Akito was steadily falling for her and everyone saw it. It was as if he were graduating from Ikki, to a real girl.

They sat down at the table where Mikan and Ringo were tying Ikki to a pole and suspending him over a fire with his pants half down. Agito and Kaoru both silently decided that they didn't want to know why.

They all eat in peace as they completely ignored Ikki's screams for help. It wasn't until they had finished eating that the spark was lit between Agito and Kaoru.

"It's ok, I'll wash up it's the least I could do. I didn't even help make lunch." Kaoru said as she took the plates from Mikan.

She was headed to the kitchen when Agito said, "It's a good thing you didn't, who knows what kind of shit you'd cook up. You definitely don't look like the cooking type."

"I beg your pardon!! Care to say that again, Limp Dick?" Kaoru swivelled around with the plates in hand and both Mikan and Ringo feared for their China.

"The Fuck did you just call me!!" Agito flamed up as he stood up and balled his hands into fists.

"You heard me, I said that you, have a limp dick." Kaoru smirked as she knew she hit a soft spot.

Agito was so enraged he hardly got to say anything before she continued, "And not to mention you've got the most feminine looking ass I've ever seen on a guy, of the little there is to see anyway." Kaoru smirked as she continued to tease him and watched him blush as he remembered how she came to know all this.

OoO Flash back OoO

Kaoru stepped into the shower, still with her towel on and arrange her toiletries to make sure she had easy access to them while taking her shower.

She was about to take off her towel when she heard the door burst open and watched with a mixture of anger, amusement and embarrassment as Akito ran into the bathroom, stark naked shouting that he wanted to take a shower with her.

Kaoru knocked him out smoothly and quietly using a basic technique in Karate to make sure that he wasn't hurt and called Ringo and asked her to take him back to his room for her.

During all of this, Kaoru just couldn't help but notice certain things; it wasn't exactly her fault really.

OoO End flash Back OoO

Agito cringed as he remembered the terrible event and was about to throw a come back when Kaoru said, "But, all that aside I really don't feel like fighting today. I plan on going to visit Hikaru after I wash the dishes."

Kaoru had already turned into the kitchen by the time he heard all of what she said.

Agito blinked and wondered if that was why she'd spent the whole morning riding around the house like that.

When Kaoru came out of the kitchen she barely registered the words, "Think fast" before she caught the pair of ATs that flew her way. Kaoru blinked as she looked over at Agito who was waiting for her by the door with his ATs on.

"Unless someone shows you the way then you'll just get lost like the dumbass that you are so come on." He was out the door before she could really respond.

Kaoru smirked and said, "So what you care whether I get lost or not? I never thought you to be the sentimental type Agito."

Agito Scowled and said "Shut up!...Akito begged me to." The last part of the sentence was barely audible, but Kaoru caught and honestly thought it was cute, odd but cute.

She hurriedly put on her ATs and headed out the door after Agito. Ringo and Mikan smiled as they watched the whole thing and told Ume that they'd tell her when she was older when she asked what was going on. Of course, they didn't hear why they were leaving so they completely misunderstood.

OoOoO

Kaoru and Agito rode in silence for once as he led the way to the town's hospital. When they reached the hospital they substituted their ATs for regular shoes.

Kaoru walked up to the woman at the front desk and said good afternoon.

"Good Afternoon dear, how may I help you?" She was short and probably in her mid fifties. She had salt and pepper hair that was only shoulder length and dead straight.

"I'm here to visit a Hikaru Taishou." Kaoru said almost choking on her sister's name.

"Hold on one minute please." She said as she turned her spinning chair around to face a file cabinet. She sifted through the files until she found the right on and took it out to find the room number.

"You must be her sister, Kaoru Taishou, am I right?" She said with a smile as she looked up from the file.

"…yes" Kaoru said softly keeping her head straight and her expression soft. She watched as the woman put the file back and closed the file cabinet. She turned back around in the chair and gave Kaoru a number and some directions to the room. The room number was 305.

Kaoru and Agito made their way through the corridors in an awkward silence. When they reached the room, Kaoru spook to him for the first time since they left the house. "Thanks for bringing me here, but I'll be fine from here on. You can go back to the house now." She didn't look at him, or wait for an answer as she opened the door and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

Agito never got the chance to throw a few choice words at her as she closed the door on him and just sighed instead. Agito scratched the back of his head and started down the hall way.

_Agito what are you doing! Aren't you going to stay and make sure that she gets home alright?_

_She said to leave her alone so that's what I'm doing_

_Since when do you take orders from her!! Go back!_

_I'm not obeying her!!! Fuck, I just figured she needed her space, and she can't be that much of a dumb ass, she must be able to find her own way home._

_But…_

_She has a lot on her mind, you're just adding to her problems._

…_am I really?_

_Jeez!! Just forget about it!!! Fuck_

…

OoOoO

Kaoru leaned against the door with her eyes closed. She wasn't sure if she was ready to see her yet. The real meaning of all that had happened hadn't quite hit her yet, but she supposed that it would hit her sooner or later, so why not just get it out of the way, and move on to the next step.

Kaoru opened her eyes slowly and looked around the room. It was your classic stark white hospital room with all the equipment and buzzing machines on one side, a bed in the middle and drawers with god-knows-what in them in front of them.

There was a bedside table to the left of the bed with a small empty vase on it. _How stupid of me, I come to visit my sister and I don't even bring any flowers or something…_

Kaoru sighed as she took a step closer to the bed and examined her sister. She swallowed hard as she looked over her. The sheets covered her up to her hip, but she could still see where they had amputated her right leg and could also see that at least her left had survived. From what she could make out of the imprints of the sheets, they had cut just above the knee.

She looked at her face and arms and noticed a few stitches here and there and one and two bruises on her face. Kaoru reached out and brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen into her face. Her face seemed so peaceful, almost as if she was only sleeping, as if she would wake up any minute now and tell her that this was all just a bad dream.

Kaoru grabbed the chair that was beside the bed and pulled it up closer. She took one of Hikaru's hands and held it in her own. Kaoru could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.

She held her head down as she cried into her sister's dead unmoving hand. Her hand was cool, not warm, but not cold either. It made her cry harder as she thought of the possibility that she may never wake up again.

Kaoru sat there and cried for at least two hours straight until someone came in and said that visiting hours were up.

Kaoru had thought that she was only there for two hours, but when she went outside, it was almost pitch black.

This would pose a problem, the town looked different, very different at night, and she doubted that she would find her way to the house.

She instead settled for just riding around the place until she fell asleep somewhere. She didn't really care at the moment. She was tired and felt terribly dehydrated from all the crying she did.

She stopped by a convenience store and found that's she was lucky enough to catch it just before it closed and bought a bottle of water. She downed the bottle and felt a little bit better and had more energy.

She decided that she would do some midnight riding before she found somewhere to kick it.

OoOoO

"Agito, why did you leave her at the hospital, what if she got lost!!" Ringo said. Everyone had gathered in the living room due to Kaoru's mysterious absence.

"Oh Fuck! So this is my fault now!"

"Yes it is!!" Mikan shouted as she drove her fist into the table, leaving a dent in its metal exterior.

"She could be lost and trying to find her way home, what if she gets kidnapped!! Or raped!!" Ringo shouted as she slapped her hands on the table, but not quite as forcefully as Mikan did.

"Alright, I propose that Shark boy here must go and look for Kaoru-chan! If he does not, then he must swear his virginity to all of us!!" Ikki shouted as he put his leg up on the table.

"Wha…" Poor Agito hardly got to say anything before the entire group picked him up and literally threw him out the front door.

Agito got up and cursed profusely for about fifteen minutes before heading out into the streets, not intended to be subjected to give up his virginity to anyone.

He sighed as he rode off into the night and kept an eye out for her. He decided to go to the hospital to see if she was till there, only to hear that's he'd just missed her.

He cursed under his breath as he headed away from the hospital in the general direction that was home. She must've known at least what direction to go in.

He noticed the closed convenience store and figured that she might've come here to get something to eat or drink before it closed, so he might be on the right track.

He wasn't even sure why he was looking for her in the first place. He soon found that it would take a very long time to find her as he continued to ride around the streets looking for a wondering girl that didn't look like she knew where she was going.

He did, however, find something else that proved to be very interesting. There were scares on the buildings. Scares that he'd never seen before and they looked very fresh, as if the person had only just pasted through here.

He doubted it was her, but decided to take a chance and followed them. He was shocked to find that, it was actually pretty hard to follow the scares as they winded through the streets and back alleys, going up unto the roofs of houses every now and then. He was really beginning to believe that he was mistaken; there was no way that these scares could've been made by a newbie. She didn't have that much promise.

He however, he was proven wrong when he found were the scares stopped and stood, shocked as he looked down at Kaoru, fast asleep in the grass. They were on a gentle slope and it looked as if she was about to jump from the top of the hill, but maybe she got too tired and decided to just take a nap, but ended up falling asleep.

Agito took a moment to go over the scares that he'd followed and noted that he was actually out of breathe a little. He shook his head and decided that he'd ask her about it later.

He bent down and shook her shoulder to wake her. She didn't budge. He tried again.

She mumbled something incoherent and then turned over unto her side. Agito gritted his teeth together, his patience wearing thin. He kicked her in the stomach shouting for her to wake up and was completely shocked when she caught his leg and swung him around and slammed him into the ground.

She had caught him off guard and managed to do some damage. He stood up with a grunt and a couple curses as he examined the small cut on his upper arm and the bruise that came along with it.

He was about to explode when he noticed that Kaoru was still fast asleep. His jaw dropped as he watched her turned over unto her back and mumbled something in her sleep.

He sighed heavily and cursed himself for being so soft. He continued to curse under his breathe as he bent down to pick her up. He gently slung her over his shoulder and sighed again as he thought of how tired he was.

He ignored the extra weight and rode off. He took it easy on the way home, not bothering to do any fancy tricks just grinding a few times here and there but that was all.

By the time he got back to the house, he was exhausted and literally dropped Kaoru on the couch when they opened the door for him.

Ringo protested but he didn't hear her as he headed straight up to his room and to bed.

OoOoO

Agito opened his eyes and wasn't too surprised to find Ikki in his face; Akito must've woken up and gone to his room. Agito scooted backwards away from Ikki only to bump into something else, something softer than Ikki could ever be.

Agito slowly turned over and actually screamed when he saw Kaoru's face about one inch away from his own.

Agito shot up and out of the bed for two reasons. One was because Kaoru had some how managed to end up in the same bed as him, and the second reason was because he finally noticed that Ikki was stark naked and wide awake.

"I am glad that you have awoken to my manly glory!! Come, breakfast is served, and though I believe that…" Ikki however, never got o finish as Kaoru, half awake, planted her foot hard on his bare ass and said, "Shut up, I'm trying to sleep…",then rolled over to face the wall.

Ikki cried out in pain as the shock wave from the kick reach his groin. He clutched his area and literally rolled out of the room to his own where he attempted to recover.

Agito was still only half awake, so all of this flew by him without really clicking until Ikki was already half way to his room, then he exploded, "WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!"

Kaoru shot up and out of the bed shouting something like "I didn't do it!" And blinked twice before realizing what was going on.

"Oh…good morning…" She said while sitting back down on the edge of the bed and stretching her limbs while a long yawn escaped her lips.

"Good morning!?!?! What the Fuck are you doing in my room in the first place!?!"

"Uhm…good question…" Kaoru said as she put her index finger on her chin and looked up at the roof as if looking for an answer.

Agito sweat-dropped and cursed under his breathe before saying, "Just get out!!"

"But it's about time for school anyway, we might as well get ready." Kaoru said as she stood up and began taking of her shirt while heading to the door.

"GAH!!!! What the Fuck do you think you're doing!!??!!!" Agito shouted as he threw up his hands to cover his face as he attempted to shield his eyes and to cover his blush.

"Just look the other way, jeez." Kaoru said calmly as she opened the door and headed to the bathroom with her shirt already off.

Kaoru took a quick shower and put on her uniform. She headed down to the dining table and found that she was the last one there.

They ate breakfast, and as per usual, it was chaos. By the time they were ready to leave for school Agito and Kaoru were already diving down each others throats.

Kaoru had decided that she'd had enough by the time they reached the school gate and instead opted for putting up with Akito's strangeness. It took a while to get past his defences, but she eventually managed to switch the patch.

Akito latched unto her arm as usual and they entered the school in peace. When they reached the class, rumours of how Akito must've dumped Ikki spread like wild fire. All the girls that were originally After Akito, lost their hopes, since he was actually latching unto a girl this time, and all the guys that thought Kaoru was good looking and sought after her when she came on Friday, felt a surge of anger toward Akito.

The day went by rather quietly if you exclude the team and their stupidity, Agito and Kaoru going at it, after Kaoru had had enough of Akito's mush after he attempted to 'examine her body for any scratches or injuries' after she had tripped and fallen down the stair due to some girl with a grudge, for the fifth time, Onigiri desperately trying to get a look at Kaoru's panties (he had put her at the top of his list as the only girl whose panties he'd never seen before), and Buccha stealing out of everyone's lunch when they weren't looking.

Soon it was time for Kaoru to face her trial. She had brought a change of clothes in order to be able to properly ride. She had also brought her headphones and her Ipod chip.

She stepped out of the changing room and headed to the front gate where everyone from the team and Ringo were gathered.

"Are you ready to challenge me? Do you really think that you can defeat me, Baby Face!!?" Ikki said as he cracked his knuckles and looked down at her.

"I was born ready." Kaoru said as she turned up the volume on her head phones so that everyone could hear.

It was set up like an F class Dash, but it was just Ikki against Kaoru. If she won, then she could join the team, if he won, then she'd have to strip naked in front of everyone and stay that way 'til they got home, so she had extra motivation.

Emily, was the one starting the race. "1!" She said, holding out the coin, ready to drop it.

"Hey Ikki, have you ever heard this song before?"

"2!"

"No, but how is that more important than this race?"

"True, true…" Kaoru smirked at that.

"3!" The coin fell. As soon as Kaoru heard the coin drop, she sped off.

The track was the fence around the school, she had been practicing her grinding yesterday a lot so she was good, but Ikki was still in the lead.

She was right on his tail for most of it, and Ikki could've sworn that he was going slower than he thought he should be.

He didn't pay much attention to it, until he heard her music get louder. The song ended and another one started and he suddenly felt off balance. He caught himself just in time and managed to stay on the railing, but unknown to him, he'd actually slowed down quite a bit.

Kaoru took this chance and went to full speed. She was catching up to him fast and had no intention of stopping when she was inches behind him. Instead Kaoru jumped clean off the fence and soared high over his head.

Ikki looked up in awe as he watched her flip and twist in the air. The trick tore a girlish squeal out of her lungs as she landed back on the railing in front of Ikki. She continued forward, and Ikki tried his hardest to speed up, but couldn't seem to go any faster.

Before he knew it, they were back at the starting point and Kaoru had won. Ikki landed hard on the floor and panted slightly. "What the hell…was that!!?"

"Hehe…want me to explain it to you?" Kaoru said as she noted the confused expression on everybody's face.

"Well, here's what happened. You felt like you were going slower than usual right?" Ikki nodded slowly, listening intently to her explanation, dying to learn a new trick. "Well, you're actually pretty good, you shouldn't be able to even tell that you're going slower than normal. It was the music. Whenever someone hears a song for the first time, their brain tends to focus on it, whether they know it or not. In turn, this makes time seem as if it has slowed down. Also, the nerve impulses sent to your muscles get a little distorted and they don't perform as well as they should. So what I did, was I played this music loud enough for everyone to hear, and it's from Italy, so I know you've never heard it before." Kaoru grinned proudly as she finished her explanation.

The others made awed sounds of approval and shock that she'd thought of something so unique.

The only two that didn't seem excited were Agito and Ringo. "Agito-kun, doesn't this all sound familiar?"

"Hn…" Agito grunted his answer as he continued to stare off into space, deep in his thoughts.

"Doesn't it remind you of that team that's supposed to be a legend? The "Singing Rain"." When Ringo said that, Agito's head shot up as he ran this information over in his head.

He remembered everything that the man from "Red Fraction" had said and tried to put two and together. None of it made sense to him though. _How does she know the secret Techniques of the "Singing Rain". Could it be that her parents were the missing two from that team…no that can't be right, if that was the case, then she would know more about AT than I do, and there's no way she could've been acting this whole time…It's too perfect. That guy mentioned something about their Emblem too; he said that she had it. But when she saw the picture…she didn't know what he was talking about. None of this adds up!! _

_I don't think Kaoru-chan would've lied to us about anything, why would she?_

_I don't' know…but we don't have time to be wasting on this, looks like we have yet another moron-member to train._

_That's not nice Agito!!_

_Since when have you known me to be fucking nice?_

…

"So what did you think?" Kaoru suddenly appeared in front of Agito, startling him out of his thoughts.

"It's nothing special." He lied.

Kaoru pouted and smacked him on the arm which started up an argument between the two.

"Oh and just what's that supposed to mean?" Kaoru said as she stood akimbo in front of him.

"It means that you are UN-IM-PRE-SSIVE." Agito spoke to her as if she was a retard, really, really slowly.

Kaoru's hair literally puffed up as she fumed over what he said, she, however, never got the chance to retort as Ikki butt in and dramatically presented her with a Kogarasumaru Emblem pin.

"Now, you're a part of the team! of course you'll have to try your hardest to keep up with me but, we'll understand if you can't even begin to comprehend the genius that is I" Ikki said as he stood up proudly, an imaginary wind blowing his supposedly stiff and spiky hair.

"…Right…whatever." Kaoru said as she pinned the Emblem to her jacket and smiled.

"Wow!! Congrats Kaoru-chan!! You're one of us now!!" Kaoru squealed as Emily hugged her while congratulating her. Soon enough the whole team was surrounding her along with Ringo-chan as they congratulated her. Kaoru felt like she'd never felt before. She and her sister never really had many friends when they were younger, just a few, but they never showed her his much love.

Kaoru smiled and laughed with everyone, and even decided to not kill Onigiri too thoroughly when he groped her ass.

Agito watched on the sidelines and smirked before switching the eye patch so that Akito could join in the fun.

Kaoru frowned slightly as she watched Agito switch the eye patch. _That boy needs to lighten up!! He's too young to be so up tight…_

Akito immediately latched himself unto Kaoru's arm. "Kaoru!!! That was so cool!!!! You're the best!" Akito leaned forward and quickly pecked Kaoru on the cheek, earning him a blush, and a bitch-slap.

Akito stumbled back a little and then fell to the flour unconscious while everyone else went on about their business as if it hadn't even happened.

OoOoO

Kaoru sat down on the bed clad in nothing but an over sized t-shirt and underwear. She stared out of the window and sighed.

_I am member of Kogarasumaru now, but…was that the right decision? Maybe it would've been best not to get them involved. But they aren't involved, to them, this up coming match is just a match, a battle over territory and parts, they don't have to know anything about my parents being murdered or how they've threatened to kill Hikaru. _

Kaoru nodded to herself as she thought about all this. _That's right, I'll just get the information I want out of them after we win the match, and then after that, I'll quit Kogarasumaru, and leave to get myself some answers. _Kaoru sighed as she realized that if she continued to be such close friends with them, parting would be very hard when the time came. She'd have to be a bit more distant if this was going to work.

Kaoru sighed for the hundredth time the night and looked over at her bedside table were a digital clock stood, the numbers flashing neon green at her, announcing that it was currently two thirty-three am.

She stared out at the window and watched the stars. The moon had already retired for the night but it was still beautiful.

Kaoru smiled and quietly hopped of the bed and grabbed her ATs. She quietly stepped out of the room and tiptoed down the hall.

She was just about to reach Ikki's room when the door creaked open and he stepped out.

Kaoru froze and watched as he walked passed her with his eyes closed and headed into the bathroom. Kaoru held back her chuckles as best as she could while she headed down the hall and down the stairs before he came back.

She reached the front door and as quietly as possible, she slipped through it and headed out into the open air.

She'd found that riding was the only way she could really get away from things. She could forget all these trials and tribulations, even if just for a little while, so that was what she intended on doing.

However, it does get on one's nerves if you find that there seems to be something following, or rather…someone…

OoOoO

End...REVIEW!!!!plz...Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! ^.^

JA NE


	5. Highway Chase

Highway Chase

Disclaimer – I only own whatever you see in this story excluding whatever you see in this story that is from the Air Gear manga/anime series.

OoOoO

Kaoru settled on a slow run and smiled slightly as she felt the wind softly blow her hair away from her face. Normally she slept with her hair out, so that's how it was now.

She loved the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair, ever since she discovered riding, she'd loved it, it was the only time she would actually wear her hair out during the day.

Kaoru knew she was going to get lost but didn't care; she just wanted to get everything off her mind. For some strange reason though, she couldn't seem to get the image of Hikaru's dead-looking hand out of her mind.

It burned her. It was a terrible piercing pain that ran through her entire body whenever she remembered it. When she was running against Ikki in her trial, she had managed to forget about it for a while, but now…

Kaoru remembered how her hand felt cool, not cold, not warm, a dreadful reminder that she might not wake up again. Kaoru pushed these thoughts from her mind and pressed forward running faster and harder.

She always walked with her headphones because she knew that she would always need them. Whenever she was feeling down, and Hikaru wasn't there for whatever reason, she would listen to her music, music was her life. Music was her cure for everything.

Kaoru placed the headphones over her head and turned up the volume. She played the song "The Night" by Disturbed and sang along with it. It was one of her favourites. She found it very easy to ride along with it.

About half way through the song, Kaoru began to dance, if you'd call it that, with the music. She twisted and turned, zigzagging through the street singing along with the music.

During the guitar solo, she'd found her way up unto someone's roof and soared off the edge doing numerous twists and flips in the air. The amount of g-forces that were exerted unto her body, tore a shriek of mirth out of her lungs.

The song finished just as she landed and ran ahead before the next began.

Kaoru had been riding for at least ten minutes when the strangest thing happened.

Kaoru was twisting and turning along with her music and had turned around to ride backwards and could've sworn she caught slight of someone riding off into a corner. Kaoru blinked slightly, but brushed it off.

Another ten minutes passed when in between songs, Kaoru knew, without a doubt, that she heard someone laughing somewhere behind her. She swivelled around and even stopped singing as she rode slowly backwards, bringing her riding to a slow stop and pausing the song to observe her surroundings.

She looked around her; the streets were full of ominous shadows at night, especially when the moon was not there to shed its pale light on things.

It was only then did Kaoru notice two things, she should've noticed a long time ago. One was that, it was a lot darker than she thought, and that she was very vulnerable at the moment, and two was that, she seemed to have reached what seemed to be a highway bridge.

If she was on a highway bridge, that that must mean she might end up leaving the town if she continued in that direction.

Kaoru decided that she'd go without her music for now, just to be on the safe side. It was too late and too dark to be shutting out the rest of the world.

Kaoru started off with a slow run and headed back in the direction that she had come, only to have to skid to a stop when something flashed in front of her; dashing from the dark shadows of an alleyway to her right, across the street, and into the shadow of a tall building on her left.

Kaoru furrowed her brow and silently moved into a stance that would allow her to run off if need be.

She waited patiently for the thing to appear again. She didn't have to wait long. It dashed out once again, not form behind the tall building it had run to before, but from a narrow crevice between two short buildings, little ways in front of Kaoru. Kaoru had to literally jump back in order to avoid it.

She again had to jump back in order to avoid it as bounced off of the wall on the other side of the street and dashed across again.

"Tch! Shit…" Kaoru cursed as she turned around and ran towards the highway, there was no way she'd be able to get passed him that way. _He's leading me to the highway bridge!! Shit I can't do anything but play into his god damned hands!!_

Kaoru cursed under her breathe as she glanced behind her and saw that whatever was chasing her was no longer wasting time hiding in shadows.

She managed to get a good look at its silhouette and noticed that it was, one, human, two male and three, on ATs.

Kaoru cursed loudly as she felt her foot catch in something and grunted as her face hit the cold flour hard. There would definitely be a bruise there by sun rise.

She was tired, she hadn't slept since that morning and from all the running that she was doing, her legs felt like jelly. Kaoru, however, endured and managed to stand up again.

She slowly stood up and noticed that she couldn't hear him approaching and got the sickening feeling that he was standing right in front of her. She was right.

She looked up to find a tall red haired man. He wore a black hoody over a dark blue t-shirt that had some erotic picture on it and a pair of dark jeans that bore obvious signs that he was a veteran storm-rider.

She stood up and faced him. She didn't show the fear that she felt inside and kept her expression blank.

The man snorted and smirked at her, "Well I'll be. What do we have here?"

The man raised his hand to touch Kaoru's right cheek where she knew her bruise was starting to show and Kaoru slapped his hand away with unnecessary vigour. She glared at him with a cold stare as he mockingly made noises of pain, as If she had hurt his hand.

He playfully flashed his hand, feigning pain. He smirked and said, with a malicious tone in his voice, "You know, for a little girl, you've got a lot of cheek. I like that. I can almost see why he wants you so bad."

Kaoru's eyebrows furrowed together again in confusion at this statement. "Who the hell are you?" she was getting tired of his idle banter. "And what do you want with me."

The man looked off into the distance and smirked, then looked back at her without turning his head back to face her. "My identity is of no importance right now, but what is important, is that I want you gone. You are in my way."

Kaoru shivered slightly as the man leaned in as he spoke, his voice full of something so scornful and contemptuous, something so congealed Kaoru couldn't speak around.

"I want to challenge you. I want to see if you're really worth his attention, if you're really worth it. It'll be a dash, something on your level or close to it at least," the man chuckled slightly at this, "How's that?"

Kaoru's anger found its way back to the surface again as she spat at his feet before saying, "Fuck you."

Kaoru stood her ground, despite the swelling fear in the pit of her stomach. This man's aura sent shocks of fear running through her entire body and into her very core. Something about him made her want to fade into the darkest shadow and out of sight.

The man laughed slightly at first, but then it slowly built up into a bone chilling cackle. Kaoru shivered slightly as she stepped back slightly from his laughing frame. His laugh was scary, no, more…creepy than anything.

Kaoru didn't have time to react as his hand suddenly shot out and grabbed her neck. His cackling ended just as abruptly. Kaoru struggled to pry his fingers from her neck as he raised her off the ground.

"You dare spit at my feet!! I'll tear you apa…" Kaoru however, cut him off by swinging her foot around high and striking him hard across the face with the front wheel of her AT. The impacted left a deep gash in his cheek and caused him to drop Kaoru as he screamed out in pain.

Kaoru took this chance to take off unto the highway. She knew it wasn't the best place to be at the time, but it provided space and light, considering the streets lamps were still on, but she knew that the sun would be rising soon, and people would be waking up and heading to their jobs, all she had to do was survive until then and then maybe…

Kaoru swiftly switched on her headphones and played her music loud enough for him to hear. For someone of his speed and agility it wouldn't do much, but it would help. She heard him curse loudly from a far ways off and sped up as she knew that he had started to run now, she could pick out the unfamiliar hum of both their ATs against the steady beat of her music.

From that she could calculate how far away he was and how much time she had to execute the plan she'd just come up with. And as you know, these plans that people come up with on the spot are always crazy and will never work unless you're crazy. Take Jack Sparrow for instance.

Kaoru calculated that she would have two minutes and forty-seven seconds before he could reach her if they kept going at this speed.

Kaoru picked the first wire she saw and grabbed unto it. She grunted as the metal scorched her hand as she swung herself around and hooked her ATs unto the wire and rode up the wire at an incredible speed.

Not only was this move generally a B class move, but to do it on a thin metal wire, that just could not be possible for someone who supposedly only just started riding AT, or at least, that's what he thought as he watched from a far as she rode up the wire and flipped up unto the top wire that connected them all.

She ran along the wire towards him. He frown wondering just what she was up to, of course she knew that he could just as easily get up there. He however was completely thrown off when he watched her chuck off of the wire just a little ways in front of him and fall straight to floor.

He watched her fall and before he knew, he was right below her. He cursed loudly as Kaoru landed on her feet, on his head. They both fell to the floor, but Kaoru stood up quickly, exhausted from that extremely hard an extremely terrifying trick she just did. She hoped and prayed that he was unconscious, because, she didn't think her legs could take much more.

Kaoru felt her knees start to give in just as he started to stand up. By the time he had stood up, she had fallen to her knees, too exhausted to even try to run away again.

The man was bleeding from somewhere on top of his head and looked dizzy, but above all that, he looked livid.

Kaoru watched in terror as a vein pulsed violently in the man's neck. It looked as if it would burst any minute now.

He looked as though he was about to speak, when a voice from somewhere high up sounded. "Naotaku, don't you think that's enough for one night?"

Kaoru didn't get a chance to see her saviour; when he'd jumped down from god knows where he was facing the man that attacked her, Naotaku.

"But…"

"No, buts Naotaku, what you've done is unforgivable and a disgrace. Leave…Now!" Her saviour was shorter than Naotaku and had on a long black coat with a hood over his head.

Kaoru couldn't hear the rest of the argument; she only registered when Naotaku had finally left and when her saviour had turned around to face her. She couldn't see his face, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway, her vision was fading, she was losing consciousness. Exhaustion was taking over.

Her saviour had said something, but she couldn't make it out, the last thing she registered was that he had bent down to pick her up and she could see a silver necklace under his coat that looked strangely familiar to her, something from back in Italy. She however had no time to dwell on it as unconsciousness swallowed her whole.

OoOoO

Kaoru shot up to the sound of the alarm clock in a cold sweat. Kaoru looked around at the room around, registering that was indeed where she was supposed to be and not in some cell in some unknown place. She wasn't even sure if all that was real or not. Kaoru burst through the door to the bathroom without knocking and didn't even register when Agito shouted at her for barging in on him in the shower.

"What the fuck are you doing in here!!? G-get out now!!" Agito looked flushed, but Kaoru acted as though she didn't even hear him. She made a bee line for the sink and proceeded to wash her face vigorously.

Kaoru started into the mirror and took notice of the light black and blue bruise she had on her right cheek and felt the knot in her throat grow as she realized that it was indeed reality.

She took in a deep breathe and washed her face again, it was only then that she noticed that someone was trying to get her attention.

She looked up sharply at hearing her name and immediately shot her gaze to the floor once again when she glimpsed Agito half naked, standing in the door way to the shower, a towel around his waist and the rest of him soaking wet.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that you…" She stopped talking however when she felt Agito take her chin and lift up her face so that he could look at her.

"Where were you last night?" His question was blunt and assuming.

"I…it's, it's nothing, I just went out for a little ride and tripped along the way. I am a newbie you know…" the lie didn't come out as smoothly as she hoped but he'd bought into it and mumbled something about her being a shithead newbie and an idiot.

Kaoru sighed as she was unable to resist watching him walk out of the bathroom, half naked and sopping wet. She shock her head slightly to clear her mind, reminding herself that she shouldn't get too close to them, not now, not ever; her situation was too dangerous to get them involved.

She quickly slipped out of her clothes which she noted were rather dirty from her little…encounter last night.

By the time she was to go to school, after she took a shower, put on clothes and ate breakfast, all Kaoru could think about was the boy who saved her. He seemed so familiar to her. _And that necklace...I know I've seen it somewhere before. I just know it..._

Kaoru's thoughts were interrupted when Ringo called after her. They were supposed to be leaving the house and everyone was already a couple yards ahead of her. Kaoru blinked and shook her head before waving to signal that she was coming and rode forward towards on her ATs. Everyone had waited for her except Agito who had gone on ahead of everyone.

On the way to school Kaoru still couldn't get her mind off of him. Slowly, throughout the day, the story became twisted in her mind, things became exaggerated the situation worse, and by the end of the day, Kaoru was almost in love with her savior. She tried her best to rid herself of those thoughts, but nothing worked quite as well as a good fight with Agito, which seemed to be happening a lot more often today, but it still didn't completely stop her from thinking about him when she had a moments peace from him.

Agito on the other hand, couldn't stop thinking about Kaoru. Where did she go last night? What could she be thinking about? Did it have anything to do with last night? What could it be, to be so important that she would daydream for the entire lunch time while he shouted explicit insults at her until she noticed and retaliated? Did it have anything to do with that team Red Fraction? All these question buzzed around in his head the whole day as he watched her strange behaviour.

Finally at the end of the day, Agito decided that it wasn't any of his business and that he didn't care and decided to go out for a little ride.

OoOoO

End, Hope you enjoyed it, love you all, REVIEW!!!!! (or else i won't love you anymore :P)

JA NE


	6. Red Fraction

Red Fraction

Disclaimer: I only own what you see that is not in the anime or manga series Air Gear.

OoOoO

It is now Thursday morning; Kaoru has spent the past three days training hard for the upcoming battle with Red Fraction. During lunch time on Thursday, Kazu and Onigiri Finalize the date of the parts war battle and to register it online.

It was registered for Friday night. It's an F class [Dash], the course being again, the fence around the school. They decided to use that since they know it fairly well. Ikki gathered everyone in the team around and said, "Ok, no, in parts war each team needs five members each right, and we have six members, that means that one of us, is gonna have to stay back. Someone won't be a part of it."

Ikki looked around at everyone. No one responded immediately. Kaoru had a feeling that she knew what was coming. She didn't start the team with them, and there's no way Ikki would choose her over one of his best friends, well, Agito maybe, but he's invaluable talent, no way would he give that up.

_Ok, no problem, all I need from Red Fraction is information, that's all, so it's ok if I don't really participate in the race._ Ringo had explained everything about Parts War to her while Kazu and Onigiri registered the battle, she told her all about the different classes and the battle's that were tied to each class. She told her about how everything worked, if a team challenged another, then that team would be forced to battle on their opponent's territory, this posed an advantage to the team being challenged, just like in their current situation. Kaoru decided that she didn't really understand any of this, and that she would just be a burden to the team, so she spoke up. "Hey, don't worry, I'll pull out. I'm that good anyway…" Kaoru said scratching the back of her head, breaking the awkward silence among the team member's.

Everyone was silent for a while then Ikki patted her on the back and said, "That…makes me really sad, and I was just about to kick out the perverted pig so that you could save us all with your magnificent talents." Ikki said all this in one breath and immediately took off for the door before Onigiri could reach him while screeching a few choice words after him.

Everyone in the living room was laughing and Kaoru didn't quite know how to react to what just happened. For one, that's definitely not what she expected their reaction to be and two, it was very funny strangely enough, it should've been wrong, disturbing even, but it was funny. Kaoru couldn't stop herself, she too was laughing soon enough.

After about an hour of talking and laughing…and of Kaoru and Agito biting jumping down each other's throats, they had dinner which was just as hectic with the entire group there and then after everyone disbanded, most went home, Agito went somewhere, Ikki went riding around, Ringo, Mikan and Ume stayed home and Kaoru decided to pay Hikaru another visit.

"Bye!" Kaoru waved as she stepped out of the door while Ringo out after her.

"Hey! Are you sure you'll be ok by yourself? You won't get lost again?" She looked genuinely worried.

Kaoru smiled and said, "I'll be fine, I remember the way, and it's almost summer so the days are gonna be long, I'll be back before sun down." Ringo looked reluctant at first but eventually she nodded and they said their goodbyes.

Kaoru rode off into the streets, remember the path to the hospital well. She remembered her first visit to the hospital, it was a quiet ride so she was able to embed ever corner and ever street into her memory.

She let her feet take her to where she wanted to go, something that required remarkable skills when on ATs, and then let her mind wonder. She thought again of her savoir, then she decided to actually think hard on what her savoir had saved her from.

_That man…why was he chasing me? He had said something about me being in his way, it was quite literally the other way around if you ask me, but what did he mean by it? _

_He said that someone…wanted me; he spoke like he was jealous of me, like he was jealous of the attention that someone was giving him. I must've been in the way of him getting the attention, I remember he said 'he'…I wonder if he's gay…that wouldn't be a surprise, he seems to type, utterly crazy and downright obnoxious. Ugh…anyway, so say it was because of some…guy…seems really dumb, but that's all I can think of…_

_What if, the guy he was talking about was the guy who saved me? No way…that's way too cliché…but then again, he did seem to obey him fairly quickly, he didn't seem the type of person to obey just anyone. Gah!! All of this is making my head hurt._

Kaoru sighed and realized that she was now very close to the hospital and passing a flower shop. She thought this to be very convenient and pleaded with the shop keeper to let her off the hook until later, she didn't have any money on her.

Kaoru got two roses for her sister, one white, one red, she loved the red ones and Kaoru loved the white ones, and one just didn't seem like enough so…

Kaoru walked into the hospital, changed her shoes and walked up to the front desk. This time there was a younger nurse sitting at the desk, chewing a strip of gum. Kaoru walked up to the girl and noticed two things about her, one, she was obvious what one would call gothic not majorly gothic, just a tad, and two, she was listening to music. Kaoru tapped on the desk to get her attention. It didn't work. She tried again. It didn't work. She tried again only this time, she punched down unto the table making many things jump, including the nurse. It worked.

"Uhm…Yes how may I help you?" She looked startled and a little embarrassed. Kaoru smiled at her a bit. She understood completely, it was the hardest thing to try and get her attention when she was listening to music.

"I'm here to visit Hikaru Taishou." Kaoru said sweetly.

The girl nodded and walked over to the same file cabinet to look through the files. Kaoru remembered where the room was and the room number, but she figured she had to get permission first. The girl came back to her after closing back the file cabinet and said, "It's room 305. It's…"

"I know where it is thanks." Kaoru wasted no time in heading to the room. She wanted to see her sister badly, this time she actually wanted to see her, know that she was still there, whether she was awake or not, at least she was still alive.

She had managed to survive one this one thought for the past couple of days. Despite how much fun she seemed to be having with the team and AT and all that jazz, she still couldn't put Hikaru out of her mind. How could she, she'd lived with her together for all their years of living, she loved her sister, there was never anything that could separate them until now.

Kaoru sighed and opened the door to Hikaru's room after a short walk. She walked into the room and immediately, she regretted it. As soon as she saw Hikaru's half dead body, her stomach rolled over into a knotted and she knew her mood would be down for a long time after this, but it was a necessity. Kaoru had almost completely forgotten about the roses in her hand. She found the bathroom and poured some water into the tall thin vase on the bed side table before placing the flowers inside. Kaoru pulled up the chair she had sat in on her first visit and sat.

Kaoru spilled out everything to her sister's dead ears, knowing that she would be of no help but also knowing that it would help in some way to just let it all out. She told her about when she was attack on the high way, about the upcoming game, about how Akito treated her like some exotic princess or something, she spilled everything she hadn't already, and cried again. Before she knew it, the sun was setting.

Kaoru cursed herself for losing track of time again and hurried out of the hospital almost forgetting her regular shoes in an attempt to put on her ATs as fast as possible. She headed out at top speed and decided to race the clock, race the sun itself. The idea was fun, it was crazy, impossible, just like she was.

Kaoru had a lot more fun getting home then when she actually got home. By the time she got home, the sun had beaten her by about ten minutes.

Ringo jumped down her throat as soon as she opened the door for her, shouting about how she promised to be back before sun down and yet her she was standing in the dark door way. "Boy I guess they weren't kidding when they say 'fun ends when you actually get there'." Kaoru said as she walked in behind Ringo, still going on about how she could've gotten lost or raped or killed, or worse, her ATs could've been stolen. _This girl needs to get her priorities straightened out._

Kaoru couldn't help but smile at her though, she reminded her of her mother, it was amusing in a way.

OoOoO

Kaoru couldn't sleep. She couldn't think either. She was exhausted; she'd spent a couple hours practicing before going to bed. She couldn't sleep and she couldn't think, it was the most annoying thing. When she tried to think, her head hurt, when she closed her eyes, nothing happen, she just sat there with her eyes closed staring into the back of her eyelids.

Kaoru groaned and swung her legs off the bed and stood up. She silently walked to the door and opened it. She headed towards the bathroom and did her business. On her way back, she noticed something.

Agito's bedroom door was open a crack. Kaoru silently walked over to his room door and looked in through the small crack. The hall way light was on so there was a thin strip of warm orange light flooding into his room. Kaoru's eyes followed the strip to where it illuminated half of his face. The time was hot so he apparently didn't sleep with the sheets.

Kaoru noticed that it was Agito's side of the face that was lit up, and at first she figured that they went to sleep as Agito, but then she realized that he wasn't wearing the eye. Kaoru put a hand on the door and pushed it open a little bit further to see all of his face. Kaoru stepped back automatically when he twitched and rolled over out of sight.

She noticed two things while looking at his face, one, was that this was the first time she'd ever seen such a peaceful look on his face and two, she found that she wanted to be with him, she felt that he could comfort her. Kaoru sighed heavily and closed the door silently, remembering her promise to stay detached.

She leaned against the door after closing it and sighed again. Kaoru closed her eyes briefly and leaned away from the door just in time to avoid falling through it as it was wrenched open to reveal a groggy looking Agito/Akito, whichever one it was, she wasn't sure.

"What the fuck do you want?" It was obviously Agito; she now noticed that his left eye was closed, as if Akito was still asleep.

"Wah…uhm…it's nothing, I just couldn't sleep is all…" Kaoru stuttered and was sure she looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

Agito narrowed his eye and looked at her suspiciously before saying, "Whatever…" he stepped back and was about to close the door but stopped himself and stepped back out. This time it was Akito, his right eye was closed and his left eye was open and for the first time she noticed that there was a slight difference in the colour of each eye. Akito's was a sort of golden amber, while Agito's was solid burnished gold.

"Uhm…Do you…want to come in…?" He hesitated but he asked her anyway, she was sure how to respond, it was true that she wanted to, she might be able to sleep that way but it wasn't right, she had to stay distant.

"No, I…I shouldn't…"

"Please." Akito was pleading with her; he could see right through her, she felt it. He knew she wanted to, he knew she couldn't sleep, and he wasn't going to let the chance go by, a chance to show her that he could be of help to her, to show her that he cared about her and wanted to help.

Kaoru couldn't refuse him for much longer so she just gave in, She smiled softly and said, "Alright…" Akito smiled broadly and ushered her into his room.

It was almost as if, sleep took her over immediately, she was suddenly too tired to think straight, too tired to notice her surroundings, all she could see was the bed and Akito that was all. Kaoru flopped down on the bed and fell asleep instantly. She didn't know what it was, whether it was the fact that the whole room smelt like him, or that the aura of the room was a strangely comforting mixture of Agito's aggression and Akito's welcoming. Whatever it was, it knocked her out like a drug.

OoOoO

Kaoru woke up to see Akito's face inches from her own. She jumped back and almost screamed. She only vaguely remembered what had happened last night, but it was still just a blur. She sighed, then said, "Good morning Akito."

Akito smiled and stood up away from her. "Good morning! We have to hurry and get ready, it's getting late." He hopped out of the room and ran towards the bathroom. Kaoru shook he head at him and checked to make sure she still had on her clothes. She knew Akito wouldn't do something like that, but you never know.

For the first in the past week or so, Kaoru felt refreshed in the morning, she felt ready for a new day, ready to get started, ready for the Parts War battle tonight, but then she remembered that she wasn't gonna be a part of it. At first she thought it would be alright and that she didn't really mind; now she finds that she regretted speaking up in the first place.

Throughout the whole day she found herself thinking again about being attacked on the bridge, her savior, her sister. By the end of the school day, she was depressed again and decided to visit Hikaru again before going to the match. It wouldn't be for long, one song and she'd go back.

As they were all leaving for the school grounds at six thirty, about half an hour early to prepare, Kaoru told everyone at the door that she was going somewhere and that she'd be back in time for the match.

"Kaoru, are you sure? Last time you gave me a time you…" Ringo looked worried.

"Ringo, chill out I'll be fine, this is different. I've got something I wanna say to someone." Kaoru's tone instantly ended the conversation. She wouldn't be told no. Only one person had anything left to say.

"You don't know anywhere in this place, why don't you just admit you're going to your sister?" Agito spoke coldly and Kaoru's stare was just as chilling.

She eventually looked down at the ground and then said while looking back up at the sun set, "Good bye for now…" She turned on her wheel and began in the direction of the hospital.

"Way to go genius!" Emily said looking angrily over at Agito.

"Yeah, you didn't have to say that Agito…" Yayao said looking over at him disappointedly.

"Shut Up!! Let's go!" Agito said, running off in the opposite direction towards the school.

OoOoO

Kaoru entered the hospital and said off handedly to the lady at the front desk, "I'm going to visit Hikaru Taishou." She kept riding slowly, not bothering to take off her ATs and ignoring the people shouting after her to take them off. She reached room 305 and opened the door.

She stepped in and turned on her iPod and turned to the song, 'Goodbye For Now' by P.O.D. and began to sing along with it as she pulled up the chair to sit beside her sister. As she sang she held her sisters cool hands. It was hard, singing while she was trying not to cry, but she managed to finish the song. It was a favourite between the two, she figured it was appropriate, and she needed and outlet, singing was a perfect out let for them both, they were good at it, and it was fun, they took everything out in song in the past, now was no different.

OoOoO

"So are you ready to lose?" The leader of Red Fraction called himself Vash the Stampede, everyone thought it was stupid, even the members of his own team. What confused Agito was that, the man he had spoken to while out riding with Kaoru was not their leader after all, but it was this fifteen year old punk with a bunch of other teenage losers, none of the people he saw that day were there except for one, and he was really out of place.

He was tall, and looked to be in his early twenties with spiky red hair and jeans that were proof of his competence, but the weird thing was, he was the sixth, and apparently, just there to supervise. Agito kept his eyes on him and watched his every move.

"Ready when you are." Ikki said cracking his knuckles. Everyone was ready to go, everyone was pumped up and psyched.

It wasn't long before Kaoru arrived. She walked in on the sign so silently that no one noticed her until the third match when Ringo was sneaking off to change into that stupid swimsuit costume.

"Ok, gotta find somewhere to change…Aaahh!! Oh…Hah…Kaoru, you scared the living day lights outta me, we thought you'd ditched us!!" Ringo hugged and noticed that she didn't hug her back. Kaoru had been staring at the sky and listening to music.

She sang one solitary line before leaving her to join the others, "How do you know which way the wind blows?" Ringo watched her leave and at moment, she realized how much of an enigma their new friend really was.

Kaoru arrived and watched the rest of the battle. The first two matches that she didn't bother watch were with Buccha and Onigiri. They both lost stupidly. Then Swim suit girl who she immediately knew was Ringo, won hers, then Kazu won, then Ikki won. They were all celebrating except for Kaoru and Agito, Agito was still watching the red haired man and Kaoru still wasn't paying much attention to anything.

It wasn't until the red haired man stepped up to say something that Kaoru paid attention to anything. "Well, well, who would've thought that this lowly F Class team could beat The Red Fraction? I congratulate you all." He took a deep sweeping bow. Ikki and the others looked proud and appreciative but Agito looked Furious And Kaoru looked like she could kill.

Kaoru stepped forward, walked through the team and stepped right up into his face and said, "Shut your filthy mouth, you know the deal, we won, now promise me my sister will be safe." Her tone was soft and deadly, no one could hear except for him.

"Kaoru…you know him?" Ringo asked, wondering what she was saying to him. They both ignored her. The man smirked and stared at her for a while and then spoke.

"Not quite, the deal was that, once you get yourself a team, and you beat us with your team, then you assure your sister's safety, I didn't see you fighting out there…" He smirked and folded his arms, his voice just barely above a chilling whisper.

A clap of thunder sounded over head and many of the members from both teams jumped and talk of departure erupted around them and a light drizzle began. Kaoru simply stared at him with a fierce look in her eyes that clearly told him not to play with her."Fuck. You."

"Ok, ok, ok, No need to get nasty," He cut her off before she could begin to rant like she planned. "How about this, if you can beat me, in a dash, just like the ones you just saw, then, you win and your sister is safe."

"I think we should raise the stakes." Kaoru didn't know exactly what she was doing, but she suddenly saw a window of opportunity and hopped right through it. She was in her element, literally. "If you win, you get the necklaces and you get me," She paused to see his reaction. He raised his eyebrows and smirked. "If I win, then Hikaru's safety is assured, and I get information." Kaoru finished and waited for his approval.

He seemed to be in deep thought. He looked down at the ground and stood with one hand on his hip and the other on his chin, he looked very gay for some reason. "alright then, you've got yourself a deal little missy. You hear that everyone?!' He shouted the last sentence so that everyone could hear him.

Another Thunder clap sounded about them and a down pour began, everyone was about to leave when they heard him. "This Battle isn't over yet!! This little missy, wants to try and beat me!! Winner takes all!!"

Ringo whipped around to see Kaoru and Naotaku staring darkly at each other. The entire team was in an uproar. They were all vexed because they didn't know how good this guy was, nor did they know whether or not Kaoru could handle it, the only people who had seen her talent was Agito, Akito, Ringo and Ikki.

Ikki and the guys were ready to start a fight, but they stopped when Agito shouted at all them to pay attention, their battle was beginning. Emily was counting.

"1!"

Kaoru turned on her headphones loud enough to blare over the sound of the heavy rain, helping the rain to drown out Emily's voice.

"2!"

She played the song she sang to Hikaru earlier that day. It felt like so long ago top her that she was sitting in that hospital room with her.

"3!"

Kaoru registered the coin drop and shot off as fast as she could. He was still faster than her, he could've shot past her and win in less than a minute, she was sure, but he was playing with her, toying with her. It was true that the music was slowing him down a bit, and the slow tempo of the song only made it worse, but all the better for her.

It took a while to catch up, she was going top speed, and she still couldn't catch up to him. She felt as if every five seconds that went by, she was falling a further inch behind him. She picked it up as best as possible and gritted her teeth.

She couldn't do it, she could see the end of the track now, and the song was almost done. It wasn't until then that she realized what she was doing wrong. I song had more than one purpose, more than one use, it was magic to her, of course it did.

Kaoru began to sing, ignoring the water that was pouring into her mouth as she did. She sang loudly, and looked straight ahead. He was maybe four feet away from the end of the track and she was maybe twelve feet away. She could make it, she knew it, she could do it…

Kaoru jumped and She sore. And from what everyone saw, she would've landed just behind him, if she hadn't skidded on the rain to go further. As she reached the end of her accent, and began to fall, Kaoru revved her ATs to the point of Overheating. The heat produced, heated the water to the boiling point. Every water droplet that touched her wheels almost literally exploded, giving her that extra push she needed.

Kaoru landed just in front of him and skidded to a halt on the end of the track. She was still singing and reached the last line when all the adrenaline exploded from her in a long harmonized note that ended him her shouting. She took a deep breath and watched, as if through a picture frame as everyone in Team Kogarasumaru, including Emily and Yayao came to hug her.

She couldn't hear them shouting her name, all she could hear was the blood pulsing in her ears. She couldn't feel them patting her on the back, all she could feel was the euphoria of overcoming her trials, of defeating reality, of winning. She couldn't see properly, all she could see was Naotaku, and for some reason, she imagined him to look completely defeat and shell shocked, but to her amazement, her looked …smug.

It was then, in that realization that everything came back into view, reality took over again, she snapped back. The noise of the two teams, one proud and joyous, the other vexed and angry, pounded in her ears. She could feel her legs screaming for rest, protesting against any further movement. She felt her eyes burning her, she needed rest, and she could hardly see, her vision was blurry, but if one thing was clear, it was the smug look on Naotaku's face.

Kaoru pushed her way out of the crowd towards him. No one really noticed that she was gone, they were too euphoric, she understood and was glad for it. She walked up to him and stood up right in front of him much like she did before and said, "What the FUCK are you smiling about!!???"

"Now, now, such foil language is not becoming of you my dear." He totted at her and shook his index finger.

"Tell me who killed me parents!! I know you know!!" Kaoru bit back the urge to punch him.

"Now, what makes you think that?" She grinned at her and put on a fake expression of confusion.

Kaoru was ready to boil over when there was a sudden rush of wind past her and he disappeared. Kaoru howled into the air quite literally out of rage and was about to ride off into the night to work off her anger when she noticed a piece of paper in the floor that looked strangely shiny.

She picked it up and realized that it was sticker. The sticker said something, but she was too angry to really be able to read it properly in this rain. She took a deep breath and began to walk back to the group.

Agito pulled Ringo away from the group and said to her harshly, "You saw that didn't you? That's not Fucking normal!!! No Newbie, and I mean NO Fucking Newbie, could've done that!!!"

"Listen Agito, it was just a fluke, if she does it again then we can look into it. There's no way I wouldn't know about her if she was that good." Ringo, said sounding very convincing.

"She lived in Italy, how the hell would you have known her?!" Agito snapped back.

"Well…Uhm…Look, just forget about it alright!! And Even if she is that talented, at least she's one our side!"

"We don't know that!! That's the point I'm trying to make!! What if…"

"God, Agito, take a chill pill!!" Ringo caught him off guard and switched his eye patch. "Hi Akito…"

"I'm going to find Kaoru." He said before going off to find her among the crowd.

When he found her he noticed her expression, she looked very angry. "Kaoru, what's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing, it's just that…this vengeful rain has only washed away the dried blood, it did nothing to cool my burning hatred…" Kaoru stepped away from him and started her way home on her own, Akito not being competent at AT was unable to follow her. She started out with a run and then slowed down half way. The rain had let up a bit so she decided to take a look at the sticker again.

She took it out of her pocket and read it. "What the hell…what is 'Genesis'?"

OoOoO

End, Hope you enjoyed it!! REVIEW!!!!!! I am SO SORRY that it took so long, I know it's a bit later than I promised but anyway, it's here right! PLZ Review, tips would be nice if you have any, I don't mind flames, but don't expect me to pay them any mind.

JA NE


	7. Plans and Hopes

Plans and Hopes

Disclaimer; I do not own Air Gear

OoOoO

"That's not good enough Naotaku." A girl spoke, her voice was cold and rebuking.

"I know, I am sorry…" Naotaku spoke with slight fear in his voice.

"sorry won't cut it, we need the emblem." Said a man who seemed very upset.

"I am trying…" Naotaku was said softly.

"Listen Naotaku, you can't be playing these games any more, I know you hate the girl, but for once put aside your personal matters and focus on the job!" This was the voice of a boy about fifteen or so, yet he scared Naotaku the most.

"Ah, Martin, not you too." Martin looked up at Naotaku and shook his head.

Martin turned to the three people standing in front of him, one was tallish with red hair much Naotaku's with a black jacket that a tongue of fire on the back, one was a girl who was short, maybe about sixteen fifteen with long hair and wearing a white and green sailor type dress, and the over was a boy wearing a long black coat who was shorter than the other two. "I will take over the task. I know how to get the emblem, I will get it for you."

"Is that so? Hmmm, so then, what does this little bird want in return?" The girl said to him with a small smile.

"…the freedom to be with the one I love…" Martin looked down with a blush and smiled as he thought of it. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

The girl looked over at the other two on either side of her. They nodded and she smiled. "Bring us the emblem, and you will get what you desire."

Martin was about to the leave the dark roof top with Naotaku but stopped and said, "If I may, why do we need the emblem?"

The two males had already turned around to leave and went on ahead leaving the girl with Naotaku and Martin. "We needed the emblem in order to get the Singing Regalia. So it is very important that you get for us, ok?" She smiled and flew out of sight.

Martin looked up into the sky where she had disappeared among the clouds and smiled. "Let's go Naotaku."

OoOoO

"Hey, how long are we gonna be following this little girl around huh? My muscles are starting ache from lack of use. Hey!! Are you listening to me?"

"I can hear you Jasmine. I think, I'll just observe her movements for now. When she finds the Raining Regalia…when she takes back what is hers, then that's when I'll step in."

"Ok…so …uhm…care to tell me why you're watching her like a hawk?! I mean, I don't get it. What, am I boring you or something?"

"No, no it's nothing like that, I could never get bored of you Jasmine, I just want to make sure she's up to stats is all. If what I'm hearing from her parents is true, then I'd like to see it for myself first. IT's almost as if she hasn't trained in a long time though. Her techniques are rough and blotchy. She must perfect them before she can use the Raining Regalia again."

"Yeah, yeah whatever…wait…did you say 'again'?"

"…Let's go."

OoOoO

"Hey Agito, aren't you supposed to be training? Get up!!" Kaoru said slapping Agito across the face quite hard as he slept on an arrangement of desk in the class room. It was Saturday and they had snuck into the school to use the grounds for training.

"Shut up! Fucking annoying…" He rolled over after attempting to slap her back but failing miserably. Kaoru puffed and stood akimbo over him. She thought for a moment then smirked, her smirked turned into a full blown grin as she raised her leg and kicked the desk that was holding up his middle right from under him and watched as he fell. She couldn't help but laugh at his new, awkward position.

He was beet red now and wide awake. She wasn't sure if the colour in his face was due to anger or embarrassment, well whatever it was, it was cute and she couldn't help but laugh at him. She laughed even harder as he struggled out of the awkward position.

He stood up and Kaoru took one look at his face and knew that it was time to run. Kaoru tore out of the class room, laughing as she listened to him shouting choice words after her. Kaoru had her music playing and flipped to a very energetic song and began to sing along. Agito hated when she did this, and for that very reason, she sang every day.

Agito shouted even louder as he chased after her, unaware that all of his movements were now synchronized with the beat of the music. He hated music, or so he says, he said that he would never understand how she could focus on her riding with listening to 'that junk' he called. The worst thing you could do was insult Kaoru's music, that was the worst fight they'd had so far, it actually ended in the in beginnings of a fist fight, lucky they were held apart by Ikki and the rest of them.

Kaoru was no match for Agito and she knew it, she just wanted to get him outside. She was hoping to the reach the front door before he caught her, her hopes were high. They lowered however when she turned a corner, looked over her shoulder and saw him just a few feet behind her. He had gotten so used to hearing all of her music, because she played it so often around him, that he was almost immune to it now, so that was of no help. She made on last attempt to reach the front door before he got her when she swung around a corner at top speed and saw the front doors. She jumped and reached for the door but before she could reach it, she felt something heavy land on her back.

"Fuck!! Where do you think you're going?" Agito said in my ear, she struggled to get out from under him but he held her there. Even though he had such a small figure, he was pretty strong. She huffed and wondered how long it was going to be before he noticed what he was doing.

"Where the fuck do you get off waking me up huh?! I can sleep whenever I want!!" Agito sounded tired still and his words slurred a bit. She supposed he really was tired, but the question was, why.

"Yeah, that's all fine and dandy, but your awake now and I'd very much appreciate it if you would get of my ass." She was annoyed yes, it was her own fault yes, but did he have to stay on her ass while he talked?

Agito inhaled sharply at the realization of their position, she couldn't hear it, but she could feel it, his chest suddenly inflating against her back. He hastily and swiftly stood up and brushed off imaginary dirt. I stood up slowly and watched him stumble over words in his head before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking outside into the court yard where Ikki and the team were training.

Kaoru smiled and watched him go before following and going to go train with the rest of the gang. Agito may have just gone back to sleep, but at least he was outside with them.

OoOoO

Kaoru, again, could not sleep. She hadn't been able to get a good night's sleep ever since she came to Japan, except for that one night when she slept in Akito's room. The thought to do it again crossed her mind several times before but she told herself no every time. Whereas it was a failed attempt to try and not get too close to the members of Kogarasumaru, sleeping in Akito's was just going too far.

Every night she'd have a nightmare. Each nightmare began differently, but ended the same way, with Hikaru, attempting to commit suicide, and succeeding. She would dream for an hour or so, and after that, she couldn't sleep again even if she wanted to. Tonight was especially bad because Hikaru took her with her this time, and rather than being together in death, Hikaru died and Kaoru survived, but just barely.

That night Kaoru woke up with bruises on her arms and legs. She even found a few paper-cut worthy sized injuries on the palm of her hands where the skin was broken. Kaoru had been sitting there, dressing her sudden and strange wounds. She didn't have those before she went to sleep she was sure, the entire side of her right arm was a light shade of black and blue, when could that have happened? When Agito jumped her maybe? No, not likely.

Kaoru decided that she'd had enough. She was tired, she'd gone without a good night's sleep for a long time; she had lost count of how many nights now. She got up and stalked out of the room. She could feel that she was on the verge of tears, but shook them off. She wasn't going to ask, that would take up too much time, and she might end up waking up Agito instead of Akito, she'd just have to slip in.

Kaoru walked down the corridor. Someone remembered to turn off the light this time so it was dark, but she knew where the rooms were. Night after night of walking up and down these halls until day break will embed those into one's memory.

She walked quietly to Agito/Akito's room and turned the knob as quietly as possible. She opened the door a crack and looked in. She noticed one thing that was out of order and knew something was wrong. His window was open. He never opens that window, she knows because of how many times she came this close to coming to him for help.

Kaoru swung the door open and looked at the bed. He wasn't there. At a time like this, when she felt she really, really needed him, he wasn't there. Kaoru cursed under her breathe and decided that the aroma of the room was enough to put her to sleep took up refuge in his bed and decided that if he wanted it when he came back, then he'd have to answer a few questions first.

Kaoru closed her eyes and sighed. She opened them again and blinked away from the sun as it shone brightly unto her face from the open window. It was either, he wasn't back yet, or he was back, but let her stay, or…

"So you're finally awake? Fuck." Agito said as he leaned away from the wall opposite the bed. Kaoru swung her head around and stared at him.

"Where were you last night?" Kaoru asked him immediately, she wasn't going to let him get away without telling her something.

"Why were you in my room?" He countered with a grimace.

"Answer me!" The words burst form me the instant he finished speaking, the force of the words themselves carrying me out of the bed and unto my feet.

"Why should I?!" Agito said angrily. "It's none of your business!! Why the hell do you care anyway?!!" He was shouting now, and Kaoru was determined to over shadow him.

"WHY DO YOU THINK I DON'T CARE???!!!" she fired back at him with a vengeance. There was silence for a while, then Kaoru stalked past Agito and out the door, slamming it behind her.

OoOoO

Kaoru decided that she was going to completely forget about sleep tonight and that she was going to follow him. She made sure that he saw her going to bed by going early, right after dinner. She then waiting an hour or so until everyone was asleep and then she stepped out of her room and went to check and see if Agito was in his. He was not.

The hardest part about following him was going to be to make sure that she wasn't heard. She already made sure that she wasn't going to be seen by wearing all black with a grey patterned shirt under her black coat that resembled the buildings of the town from afar. It was a new moon, so there was no extra light for her to be seen in, nor any extra shadows for him to hide in.

She followed his scars as best as possible. It wasn't easy; more often than not she found that she would have to find a way around whatever obstacles he managed to get over. She kept following them and found that they were leaving Kogarasumaru turf. What was he doing out here? Kaoru's brows were knitted together as she contemplated their location, and soon, she understood it.

As she turned a corner, she saw Agito and a coupled other people riding. This was the first time she had ever seen Agito riding for real, not just a lazy run, or just getting from place to place, he was fighting, and he was winning. At first Kaoru was impressed, she figured that they were getting their asses kicked, but she didn't understand the magnitude of it all until she watched as he passed someone, did something that missed her completely and watched as a spray of blood followed him. It was her first time seeing him riding his road, and the first time she'd ever seen him enjoy AT. She watched in horror as he mutilated the members of a neighbouring team.

As he finished off the last person, specs of blood flying unto his face, he turned to leave in the opposite direction to where she was. He was going to do more damage, to go after another team, all at once she understood what he was doing somewhat, he was expanding team Kogarasumaru's turf, for what reason she didn't know, but she had to stop him. The way it was being done…she had to stop him.

"Agito!!" Kaoru stepped out of the shadows she was hiding in and called after him. She saw him tense up. He was pretty far away but she could still see how rigid his figure had gone. "Agito…why…why are you doing this?" Kaoru began to ride forward slowly, putting as little pressure on her ATs as possible.

"It's none of your business." He said, refusing to turn around. She knew he felt regret, she could hear it in his tone. He didn't want her to see what he could do. Now why was that, she wondered.

"None of my business? Your expanding Kogarasumaru's turf without telling anyone and you say it's none of my business? I'm a part of the team too you know. Or have you forgotten?" Kaoru spoke coldly to him as she drew nearer.

Agito seemed to be at a loss of words. By the time he seemed to have something to say I was a little ways behind him. "Just…Fuck off." He said before bouncing off into the sky and out of sight. Kaoru sighed and stood there, her body rigid, her anger flaring up despite the midnight cold air.

She was angry, very angry that he would do this. She went back home, following the scares back to Agito's window and immediately went to wake up Ringo. "Ringo…Ringo wake up."

"Hmm, what, I'm not…go get…Deko king…" Ringo mumbled, her eyes half open.

"Ringo. Ringo!! Wake up!!" Kaoru slapped her across the face lightly to get her up.

"What, what is it Kaoru? Can't sleep?" Ringo said while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"No, that's not it! You have noticed how Agito has been sneaking out every night lately right?" Kaoru said, she knew that Ringo was smart, and she knew a lot more about AT than Kaoru did so she must've figured it out by now.

Ringo suddenly' snapped awake and sat up quietly, making sure not to wake the other two in the room, Mikan and Ume. "Have you figured out what he's been doing and how? All I know is that Kogarasumaru's turf has been expanding rapidly over the past few days."

"Yeah, that's him; he's been beating up the neighbouring teams brutally. I've never seen AT used like that, I mean…all that blood…" Kaoru shivered as she remembered the gory sight. It scared her in a sense. She wasn't afraid of Agito, but more of what he could do, what he was capable of and the fact that he enjoyed it. She'd never seen a grin like that on anybody's face, ever.

"The Fang Road. Remember what I told you about the eight roads and their kings, and the proof of the king, the eight Regalia? Well, I think Agito is supposedly the Fang King, but he has a rival, could it be that…"Ringo trailed off into thought and then looked up at Kaoru and said, "Let's wait up for him. I'll wake up Mikan, you go back to his room and look out for him, hold him there if we don't get back in time. Ok?"

Kaoru nodded and headed off to his room. She waited for about five minutes before Ringo and Mikan came in. They then waited another ten minutes before Agito finally came back. Agito landed on the window sill in a crouch and looked up at the three of them waiting with their arms folded.

He sighed and smirked before jumping down to the floor. "Agito, we know what you've been up to! What on earth do you think you're doing? This is dangerous! What if…"

"Fuck, shut up already. I know what I'm doing." Agito stuffed his hand into his pockets and stared darkly at them.

"Oh really? Well we don't so please elaborate." Kaoru said with a razor sharp edge in her voice.

"Listen, ever since that first battle with Red fraction, you've all been entangled in my plan." Agito grinned evilly while staring at them all.

"And what plan is this?" Kaoru asked, but it was not Agito that answered.

"You're planning to lore somebody in aren't you? You're planning to bait Behemoth into challenging Kogarasumaru, aren't you?!" Ringo said more loudly than need be.

"That's right. If we can get them to challenge us on our turf, then we'd have a chance at beating them. It's the perfect strategy!" He looked evil, to say the least. His expression consisted of a huge twisted grin and a dangerous, scheming twinkle in his eyes.

Ringo was about to spit out a few choice words but Kaoru placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. She then looked up at Agito and said, "You know, at first I thought you were just some foul mouthed kid with no manners, then I thought that you were just misunderstood like me maybe, but know I realize, that you're nothing but a blood-thirsty coward with no self-respect, no honour, and no regard for others. I won't waste my time and energy on you, and I'm going to tell Ikki about your plan, and I'm going to ruin it and challenge Behemoth on their own turf. You are no king by my standards…" Kaoru's voice chilled the entire room as she spoke and when she was finished, it was almost as if a grey mist followed behind her as she walked out of the room.

Agito was dumbfounded to say the least. She was the first person he'd ever met where her words could chill his very bones. He was angry, he was pissed, livid, but he could speak. He tried but not even his jaw moved. It didn't even twitch. He wasn't scared, he wasn't embarrassed, and he was ashamed. She shamed him badly, and the worst part was that a most of everything she said was true.

He looked down at the floor then finally said, "Will you get out of my room?" He directed the question to Mikan and Ringo who were also frozen by the chilly atmosphere that Kaoru had introduced into the room. They didn't budge at first, but they jumped when he screamed at them to get out.

His fist balled into a fist and his head lowered further as he recalled Kaoru's last words, "You're no king by my standards…" He growled lowly at the memory and then said, "Tch, what the fuck does she know…"

OoOoO

The next day, Agito woke up to Kaoru standing over him with her arms folded. "Get ready, now. Or you'll be late for school." She seemed to still be angry at him and he wasn't quite sure why that irked him so much, but he brushed it aside vigorously and quickly changed for school.

The entire day they spent ignoring each other and it was strangely quiet without their usual bantering during lunch time. After school sometime in the evening, Ikki and the team, including Agito, headed down to Behemoth territory and declared war. (A/N – Everybody knows how that scene went already, if you down remember then just read it over or watch it or whatever, yeah…it's pretty much the same)

OoOoO

After the date of the Behemoth/Kogarasumaru battle was finalized that team decided upon some hard training. Agito had taken up to task of training everyone for the upcoming battle. He was a vicious trainer but it was for good reason. Kaoru figured that he was trying so hard in order to redeem himself. She realized that her words that night had affected him a lot more than she suspected they would. In fact, she had no idea of the sheer magnitude of how much of an insult it was to say that he did not deserve his kingship. Kaoru somewhat regretted her words that night, but there was absolutely no way she was going to tell him that.

When they had decided on the battle, Kaoru was counted out because she was the least talented and a fucking newbie according to Agito, but she knew it was payback for what she had said. She didn't really mind anyway, she was after all trying her hardest not to get too attached to them. If she were to take part in the battle against Behemoth, then the already formed bond between her and her new 'temporary' friends would surely strengthen, and that just wouldn't do, she thought.

Kaoru had taken to keeping the 'Genesis' sticker close to her person lately. She would finger it inside her pocket whenever she had nothing better and would sit there, staring into space, thinking about her family and burning with the desire to know what 'Genesis' was. She was quite sure it had something to do with AT and knew that if she asked any of her teammates it would arouse suspicion, so she stayed quiet. She hardly had access to a computer either considering the fact that there was only one in the house and it belonged to Ume.

Kaoru was staring off into to space at the moment, sitting on top of a desk, still in her uniform as her teammates attempted to skate around the walls of the classroom they were in. She sat on a desk among the many that were pulled together in the middle of the room to make sure no one fell on them. Kaoru, Nakayama, Emily and Ringo were the only ones sitting down while the rest, Agito, Kazu, Buccha, Onigiri, were either on the wall or standing screaming orders, curse words, or tips to everyone (Agito). Emily waved her hand in front of Kaoru face and startled her back into reality before asking, "Hey, are you ok? You've been spacing out a lot. Ever since our first battle."

"Ah, no I'm fine. Just a bit tired." The first sentence was a lie and the second was half a lie. The truth was that she felt terrible and was very, very tired.

"I suppose, I can't imagine you getting very good sleep considering your…situation." Nakayama said with a sympathetic expression.

Kaoru just smiled softly and went back to staring into space until Emily spoke again. "Hey, by the way, you said you were going to visit your sister today right?" She leaned over slightly to get a better look at Kaoru's face and had to lean back when Onigiri nearly crashed into her after being thrown across the room by a vehement Agito.

"Yeah, why?" Kaoru said, as if what just happened was completely normal, as if a perverted white pig flying across the room over their heads was something that they saw every day.

"Well, Nakayama, Ringo and I were wondering if you might want some company this time." They were all looking at her now and smiling sweet smiles that warmed her up from the inside. It was proving to very difficult to say no to these people.

"Sure, why not…" Kaoru smiled back but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. She was happy that there were people who cared for her, but lately she'd been feeling that she was cursed. It just felt as if anytime she got close to something or someone, that something would just wither away at her touch.

"Yay!!!" They all shouted as they jumped on top of her, knocking over desks and sending the four of them to floor. Kaoru screamed out as they tackled her but laughed all the same with them. They separated and found that all the boys were staring at them and their up turned skirts. Emily and Ringo went wild and beat up the whole group, poor innocent Agito included. (he was looking outside, avoiding eye contact with Kaoru who was looking at him.)

OoOoO

It was around five o'clock and the girls were getting ready to go. Kaoru had been ready for a while and silently wondered why it was taking so long for Ringo to get ready to go visit a half dead person in a hospital full of female nurses and middle aged doctors.

Ringo was ready about fifteen minutes later and they set off to go pick up Nakayama and Emily by their houses, Kaoru on ATs and Ringo on her scooter. It didn't take long and by the time they were at the hospital it was about five forty.

As the girls followed Kaoru to her sister's room, there was a silence among them that was heavy and miserable. The girl felt sort of out of place while they were sure Kaoru was feeling sad and depressed. Kaoru slowly opened the door and lead them inside quietly.

Emily was the first to speak. "Wow Kaoru, she really is your twin. This is the first time I'm seeing her. You're both beautiful you know that?" Emily smiled at Kaoru as she sat beside her sister's bed and smiled back at her.

"Thank you." Kaoru's voice had dropped to a low soft tone as she stared at her sleeping sister. She took hold of her hand and sighed heavily. Ringo and Emily looked like they were on the verge of tears while Nakayama was already crying. She kneeled down in front of Kaoru and hugged her middle.

This surprised Kaoru somewhat but she smiled anyway. When Nakayama looked up at her, she was shocked to see that she was crying. Then she heard Ringo and Emily sniffing and saw that they were crying too. The heavy scent of tears and the solemn atmosphere that was floating around almost immediately shoved Kaoru off the edge as she too fell apart and began to cry.

They sat there, hugging each other crying for about ten minutes before they calmed down enough to talk. Kaoru was the first to speak. "Wait, am I the only that's realized how stupid this must look? I mean, a bunch of high school girls just sitting there, crying their eyes out for no apparent reason…" She chuckled at the thought as she wiped tears out of her eyes. The others laughed as well as they sniffed and wiped away tears.

"Kaoru, if you don't mind, could you tells us more about your childhood, with your sister?" Nakayama asked as she sat up in front of Kaoru.

"Yeah, that should be an interesting story." Emily pitched in with a smile as she too sat in front of her. The three girls were now sitting around Kaoru much like you would see little children sitting around an adult telling a story.

Kaoru scratched the back of her head and said, "Hmm…well, I don't know…there really isn't much to say…" She looked sheepish as they edged her on, encouraging her to tell them a story as if it were a day care centre.

"Alright alright…Let's see now…uhm…Which story should I tell them, huh? Hikaru?" Kaoru turned to Hikaru's sleeping face and smiled softly as she looked on. "oh, I know just what to tell them…" Kaoru smiled wider and then turned back to the girls.

Kaoru was about to begin her story when she heard a very, very faint noise coming from the bed. She stopped dead and looked over at Hikaru. She was moving, very slightly but she was turning her head to face Kaoru. Then, her eyes opened and Kaoru found herself staring into jade green eyes identical to her own. "K-Kaoru…?" Hikaru spoke softly but loud enough for Ringo Nakayama and Emily to hair through the thickening silence. "Kaoru, is that you?" Her vision was burring and everything was fading black again.

"Yes, Hikaru, Hikaru it's me. I'm here I'm here…" Kaoru was by her side almost on the bed in milliseconds. She was holding her hand and watched in horror as she smiled, tried to say something again, but then fell back into an unconscious state. Kaoru was at a loss for words at the moment. "Hikaru…Hikaru…Hikaru sweety, wake up…wake up please!" Her voice was rising now, and if a few doctors hadn't come in response to the sudden jump in Hikaru's heart rate, then she might've ended up shouting at her.

The girls were just as stunned as Kaoru was, even more so maybe. Kaoru wasn't able to speak for a long while. Not until hey were outside the hospital. She put on her ATs and grinned a wide grin. She then turned to the girls and said, "you know what this means right?! It means she'll be waking up soon!! She'll be ok! Oh but what am I going to tell her when she wakes up? Will she attempt suicide again? No she wouldn't, Hikaru's not that much of a coward…or at least…I hope not…" Kaoru trailed off into her thoughts and ended up riding faster than the girls could walk as she got lsot in her thoughts.

"Hey Wait up!!" Emily shouted after her, but Ringo stopped her. She told her that it may be best to leave her alone right now, plus, she wouldn't be able to hear her no matter what she tried.

Emily pouted but agreed all the same. The girls figured that they had witnessed a sort of family reunion and hoped that Kaoru would be in higher spirits after this. Things seemed to be going well for her now. The tables were turning in her favour; she had good friends in a new town, which was hard to come by; her sister was getting better; not to mention, from what they could see, she would be getting a boyfriend sooner or later. Everything was going fine for Kaoru, or at least, that what they thought. Boy, they couldn't have been more wrong about anything in their entire lives.

OoOoO


	8. Victory

Victory

Disclaimer: I do not own Air Gear, if I did the, last couple of chapters in the manga would not have existed.

OoOoO

It was only about ten days before the battle with Behemoth and everyone was getting pumped about it, especially Kaoru. Ever since that night, when Hikaru showed signs of waking up, she'd been in high spirits and wasn't even attempting to be distant form the group anymore. She was all over the place now.

She was even trying to 'help' Agito train the group by 'motivating' them, or so she says. "Come you Schally Wags!!! Put your back into it!!! What kind of a fucking shitty run is that huh?!! That's shit on the wall that's what it is!!!!" No, this is not Agito talking, this is Kaoru as Agito stared at her wondering what the hell she thought she was doing.

"What the hell??!! Shut the fuck up!! Who the Fuck do you think is the one who has to train this chicken shit team huh?! It's me not you so just shut up and go suck on a spoon!!" Agito was furious, so furious in fact that he forgot to make sure that his words made sense.

No, where as Agito was vexed, Kaoru was just having fun, so she shouted back, "Shut you damn little shark with your teddy bear boxers!! Think I didn't see them last night? Akito showed them off yesterday, they were just adorable!! What is it this time huh? Bunnies?" Kaoru grinned malevolently as she tried to grabbed after his pants to pull them down and see.

Agito blushed deeply and cursed as he dodged her attempt at his pants. Kaoru ended up chasing Agito outside the classroom and they were soon spotted fighting outside on the grounds. The group watched from the window as Kaoru tried desperately to get his pants down and he tried desperately to get her unconscious.

To their surprise, and great satisfaction, Kaoru eventually succeeded in grabbing hold of Agito's belt and dragging down his pant all the way to his knees. They could've sworn they could see his blush form the third floor of the school building where they sat watching, but unfortunately they could not see the pattern on his boxers, Kaoru did however, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it as she rolled around the floor laughing.

Agito didn't seem entertained at all as he hastily pulled his pants back up ran all the way up the wall until he was in the window sill of the classroom window, startling everyone as they leaned away from it. After that, their training sessions grew worse, and as punishment, Agito had forced Kaoru to join them too and gave her extra work, even though she wouldn't be in the battle.

Kaoru had been spending most of her evenings now a days visiting Hikaru. She had yet to open her eyes again, but every now and then she would turn over in her sleep and mumble something. The doctors said that they had to put her on antibiotics and some other medications she couldn't pronounce the name of, so she would be a sleep for at least two weeks, then she would be in the hospital for a couple days before she could be released.

Kaoru was happier than ever and always had a smile on her face now. IT was only now that she was genuinely happy did her new friends realize that before this, her smile never really reached her eyes. It was never really genuine, just a façade to make it seem as if she was ok. They never really noticed it before, but now that she was genuinely happy, they found her company very enjoyable, well except Agito of course.

Their arguments had taken an all new turn; now, Agito was the only that really got angry, and he seemed to be getting angrier ever time they fought while Kaoru just grinned and went with it, just playing with him, toying with him. It was most amusing to watch.

The next ten days passed by just about the same. In the morning it was either school or training. In the afternoon, there was more training, and in the evening, Kaoru and the girls would go visit Hikaru. It was the day before the Behemoth battle and everyone was extremely psyched about it, even Agito couldn't keep an excited smile off his face.

(A/N – Ok…again, I want use details, not that important, you already know what happened in the Behemoth battle, if you don't remember then go read it over.)

OoOoO

"This is no good…She should've been in this battle…"

"Ugh, why are we watching this crappy F Class team attempt to beat THE Behemoth? Please, remind me!!"

"Jasmine what are you talking about? You haven't been watching anything."

"Oh come on Rei!! I'm really getting tired of this! What's so special about this girl anyway?"

"You already know that Jazz."

"I know why she's important to Genesis but I don't know why she's important to you!! How will it affect us?"

"The better question is, how will it affect the AT world…"

"…you know…sometimes I wonder why I love you…"

"Hmph…I love you too Jasmine."

OoOoO

"Hmph, so they really didn't let her join this battle."

"It would've been better if they did. Kaoru would've done well in this area." Martin said as he stood watching the different fights in each cube.

"ugh…I'm just glad I don't have to see her disgusting face on such a big screen…" Naotaku said with a grimace as he too watch the battle.

"Oh what a shame, and I was looking forward to seeing what she could do. I wanted to see with my own eyes."

"I'm sure you'll be able to see it soon. I doubt she'd be satisfied with just sitting around doing nothing."

"You're right, I highly Doubt that she would…" Martin said while he folded his arms as he watched Kaoru cheering her team on from the sidelines. He balled his fists in anger, slightly jealous at the way she enthusiastically cheered for Agito in particular. He made a small growling noise before stomping off to go sulk in a corner.

OoOoO

The match was reaching its dramatic climax and soon Kaoru began to notice that here were strange people dressed in black standing around in the middle of the chaotic crowd, shock still and beaming. She knew there was something wrong about it, she just knew it. Kaoru snuck off to find a way to get close to the battle field and stood watching the last of it by a ledge were she could look down unto the battle.

Something was really strange about those people she saw, they were wearing police outfits and stuff, maybe they were form a particular team that dressed like that and acted like that for show…or maybe…Kaoru was beginning to think that they might be actual police. Could there be a law against AT in this country?

Kaoru watched and screamed and cheered as Agito and Ikki seemed to have defeated Akira. She continued to watch the scene unfold, as the battle between Kogarasumaru and behemoth ended and the battle between the storm riders and the self acclaimed Wing G men began (is that what they're called, I can't remember…)

Kaoru scrambled about trying to find out exactly what was going on. She couldn't see Agito anymore, and he was injured, she saw when Akira broke his shoulder, but then she was paying too much attention to the helicopter that appeared out of nowhere to notice where he had gone after that.

Kaoru tried to make her way done to the shattered cube in which Agito and Ikki were fighting and had to fight off quite a few people to get there. Everyone was panicking and there was chaos everywhere. Kaoru turned a corner and had to double take and head back as soon as possible as a mob of storm riders flew passed her. If she had gone forward any further, she'd have been trampled.

Kaoru found her way to balcony type ledge and looked out at the shattered cube that she was looking for. It was a long way down but there didn't seem to be much choice as about four or five of the "police" appeared behind her.

"Stop right there you!!" One of them shouted. Kaoru didn't turn around just yet. She looked straight down and found Agito. He was obviously injured and some guy was pointing a gun to his face. Kaoru grimaced and finally turned around to them.

"Don't move!!" another shouted. Kaoru did nothing but smile before deliberately falling over the edge. She heard the policemen gasped briefly before her ears were full of rushing air. She flipped twice to help slow her progress before landing squarely on her feet directly between Agito and the man with the gun. She held he hands out wide a sign to say 'stop'.

Agito seemed too tired to express his shock in any other way than to say, "The hell…" Where as, the other man, was much more energetic.

"What the Fuck!! Who the hell are you? Can't you see we're in the middle of a conversation here? Please step aside girly…" The said looking very annoyed. He had long white hair that had multiple beads dotted through it. He was wearing a very gay looking outift by her standards, with a pair of purple pants and a marina.

"No." Kaoru was trying her best to stay calm. She didn't know what was going on, she didn't know why Agito was 'talking' to this person and she didn't know their relationship with each other either. All she knew was that this person was pointing a gun in her friend's face. Now that she couldn't stand for.

The man twitched at her blatant refusal. He looked like he was going to say something, but Agito beat him to it. "Listen Kaoru just stay out of this! IT's not your fight!" Kaoru looked over her shoulder at him with an expression that was quite skeptical as she examined his beaten and bruised state. HE didn't look like he'd be walking for now much less to be able to fight again.

"He's right you know, this is between me and my cute little brother." Kaoru gasped slightly at the statement. She could hardly believe it. If he was his brother, then why would he…

"I don't believe it…" Agito was ready to say something again, but he got a sudden pain in his chest that silenced him. He held his head down, trying to bare the sudden pain without crying out. He looked up slightly without holding up his head and noticed Kaoru's feet for the first time. They weren't still like they should've been. They were shaken, not out of fear of course, they were just shaking.

It didn't click to him at first but then he looked at her ATs. She was putting pressure on them and allowing the wheels to turn while she kept them steady. How she did it, he really didn't know, but what he was sure of was why she was doing it. Her wheels were already half way through the soft, old concrete and there were several large cracks running form the ridge to the end of the ledge. She was trying to break off the piece that they were on. He looked behind him and looked down and saw that there was a large pool of water under them, and if they could get across it, then they could make it out of the sewage plant safely.

He nodded slightly to himself and thought of how it could work, but there was a fatal flaw, and he was it. They both could've easily swam across the water, maybe not fast enough but it would buy them time, but his right leg was almost completely gone at the moment, he could barely move it, not to mention his broken shoulder. There was no way she could carry him across the water, it was just impossible.

It was too late however to point out The flaws in Kaoru's plan to her, he realized as he felt the ledge shudder violently under their wait. He looked around widely for some sort of solution, but none presented itself.

"What the…what did you do?!" The man shouted as he too felt the ledge shudder and watched as the half that Kaoru and Agito were one slowly began to crumble away from under them. Agito gasped as he felt the piece of concrete he was sitting on, finally cave under his weight and felt the exhilarating feeling of falling for only a short period of time.

Before he knew it, Kaoru had grabbed him around his middle and was heading straight for the water. "The Fuck do you think you're doing?! You can't swim across this with me on your back can you?!" Agito shouted as they neared the water.

"Who said anything about swimming?!" Kaoru shouted back. Agito watched amazed as she hopped form falling piece of rock to falling piece of rock, making sure to keep her ATs goign at full speed. Her ATs were beginning to steam he noticed and he wondered silently if that was her aim. He braced himself as they approached the surface of the water and had a few last moment skepitcal thoughts about what her plan could be and hwot hey would get acroos without swimming, but then the answers were rpesented to him.

It was hot, wet and steamy. Agito was too shocked to even think as Kaoru seemed to be flying over the water surface, leaving behind a cloud of steam that greatly resembled smoke. They were across the pool of water in no time what so ever and Kaoru kept running, darting through different structures, through tunnels and half pipes, vaulting slabs of concrete twice her height. By the time they were outside the sewage plant, Agito was so shocked by her seemingly new found level of skill that he almost collapsed when Kaoru put him down. Actually he did, but that was because of his leg.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I forgot…Are you alright? We should get you to a hospital. Let me call Ikki…" She took out her miraculously dry cell phone, while the rest of her dripped with condenced water vapour, and dialed Ikki's number.

In the mean time, Agito boggled his mind in order to try and figure out that trick she did with the water_. I know for a fact that there was a country that knew how to manipulate the properties of water, but he didn't know it's name, and that wouldn't make sense because she's supposedly new to AT, unless… No…no way. That's ridiculous, but how could she have…_

_I think I understand how she did it._

_Really?_

_Yeah, when she over heated her ATs the heat would obviously boil the water right? SO when that happens, steam is formed. Steam is basically really, really hot air, so it would raise very quickly, so she must've used the energy and the pressure from the steam raising to stay off the water. _

_Ok, I get that, but how could she have thought up something like that in the blink of an eye? Not even I'm that could, I mean sure I could've thought of it, but to actually do it?! And flawlessly no less?! There's something wrong in this picture…something is wrong…_

_But wasn't that so sweet!! She came to resque us! She came in the nick of time!! I thought Kaito-nii was really going to shoot out our tongue..._

_What the hell are you talking about?_

_Don't you think it was sweet? Romantic? Anything?_

_It was rude that's what it was, i had things under control! I had a plan!!_

_Whatever, she's trying to talk to you..._

"Hello?! Earth to Agito!!!" Kaoru was stooping beside him and waving her hand in front of his face.

"What?!" Agito snapped, he didn't mean to, he was just tired, and confused, and tired, and in pain, and did I say he was tired?

"About that guy? Is he really your brother?" Kaoru looked concerned and angry at the same time. How she managed these expressions, he never knew.

He looked away from her and said, "yeah…" His tone was one that clearly told her that the conversation would not be continued.

Kaoru looked away as well and said, "oh…" She was tired, and confused. She had no idea what was going on, she didn't know who those people were and she had no idea why they were there. Well, she had one idea. "Agito, is there a law against AT in this country?" Kaoru asked him as she stood up, looking out for Ikki and the others. She got a reply text telling her that they would be there soon after she left a message. She would've gone to them, but her ATs were completely burnt out. She was surprised they got this far.

Agito looked up at her and sighed. If he told her about the law then he would have to tell her about his past as well, and why he wanted this battle in the first place. He began with telling her about his brother Kaito, then worked his way through all the way to the present, where he has now reclaimed the Fang regalia from Akira.

"So then, you were originally the Fang King, but then Udou Akira beat you and took your title. And now you've claimed it once again…" Kaoru wasn't sure of how to feel about it. Her first impression was that he was just being selfish and that all he wanted was his stupid regalia back, but then she thought that it was deeper than that. It was more than just fighting over a pair of shoes; they were fighting in order to reform their friendship. A long-term-friendship that was torn apart by a pair of shoes and a girl.

It was at that point that Ikki and the rest of the team appeared. The girls rushed to Kaoru and hugged her expressing how worried they were when she disappeared and all that jazz. Together they all headed towards the hospital where Agito was put up in a room and began his treatment.

The entire team sat around Agito's bed, celebrating and disturbing the rest of the hospital while Kaoru sat by Hikaru's bed, telling her everything about what happened earlier that day. Kaoru felt more relaxed now that she was here with her sister. She was worried about the whole Wind-G men thing but she was more concerned about finding out more about Genesis.

"You know Hikaru, he's really not that bad a person, Agito that is. He can be nice when he's ready, you just have to catch him at the right time, at least that's what I think." She smiled at her sister as she held her hand. Recently, every time that Kaoru placed her hand in Hikaru's she'd grip her fingers in her sleep. It reminded her of when they were little. Her parents told them that from the time they came out of the womb, Hikaru had a habit of holding unto one of Kaoru's fingers and not letting go. They said that they were like Siamese twins rather than just regular twins. It made her chuckle as she felt Hikaru's fingers tighten around her own. It was very reassuring, very calming, and made Kaoru so happy that she'd cry every time this happened.

The feelings she had for her sister were so strong that she felt they might just overcome her one day. One day, she'd just go crazy and do something really stupid for her sister, but that was love right? Kaoru headed out of the room and was heading to Agito's room when she spotted someone familiar in the corridor.

The person was wearing a black jacket, a pair of jeans that were rather torn at the foot and a white t-shirt. Kaoru was shocked when she saw the persons face. She couldn't believe her eyes. _Oh my god!! What is he doing here?! The last time I saw him was back in Italy!!! Wow…_ Kaoru jogged up to him and grinned widely at his surprised expression and hugged him tightly.

"AH!! IT's been so long, Martin!!"

OoOoO

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! SUFFER!!!!!! Just kidding, hope you enjoyed it, please please please review!!! PLZ!!! I love yall!!

I am so sorry that this one was so short and the first part was lame, but it served its purpose, that's all matters right now. I'll work hard to come up with chapter nine soon. :P

JA NE


	9. Loss

Loss

Disclaimer; I don't own Air Gear

OoOoO

"Oh my god!! Martin!! It's so good to see you!" Kaoru said energetically as she hugged him tightly.

Martin smiled widely and said, "Hey, it's been a while hasn't it? I moved form Italy to Japan about five years ago right?" Smiled softly at her as they separated, his hands still on her shoulders.

"Yeah just about. How have you been? How's aunt June?" Kaoru said smiling up at him while stepping back slightly.

"Oh mom's ok I guess. Hey listen; I came to talk to you about something…" He suddenly looked serious and Kaoru blinked, wondering why.

"What's up?" Kaoru titled her head to the side and folded her arms as she waited for his reply. EH stood there for a moment, contemplating and choosing his words carefully.

"You…Genesis, they don't play fair. They'll do anything to get the emblem, even kill. You have to give up the emblem, or else they'll kill Hikaru." Kaoru wasn't sure how to react. At first she thought that he was just talking, but then, she realized how serious he was. She didn't even begin to wonder about how he knew this before she got heated.

"What are you talking about? I beat that guy form Red Fraction fair and square! He promised that they wouldn't hurt Hikaru if I won." Her voice was trembling slightly, whether it was out of fear or anger she wasn't sure.

"Kaoru please, listen to me, they don't play by the rules, these people, they're evil and conniving. You can't expect them to keep their promises." Martin was still holding her shoulders and shook them slightly to emphasise his point.

Kaoru shook him off angrily and said, "I'm not giving them my necklace? And I won't allow them to hurt Hikaru." She was angry now, he could see. Martin too was getting frustrated with her stubbornness.

"Kaoru just give me the emblem already!! It's just a…"

"Wait…give you the emblem? You're a part of Genesis?!" Kaoru looked outraged. How dare he come and talk to her like it was nothing at all when he was a part of the team that killed her parents.

"Ah…no wait…it's not what you think…" he looked frightened now. It was clear that he wasn't planning on telling her, that it had just slipped by accident and that he completely regretted it.

"Not what I think?! You're a part of the team that killed my parents! You're a part of the team, that's threatening to Kill Hikaru!! And then you come here and dare to speak to me like we're still old buddies??!!" Kaoru was beyond angry now, she was livid, her entire frame was shaking as she jabbed her index finger into his chest.

"Kaoru please just listen to me!! If you give up the emblem now, there doesn't have to be anymore death!! Just give it to me! Why do you care so much, it's just a piece of metal!!!?" Martin was also getting angry now. He just couldn't understand why she would choose a piece of metal over her sister.

"It's a piece of metal that represents what's left of my parents and what they meant to me…to us!! How could you understand?! Are both your parents dead?! Is a member of the team that killed them standing right in front of you?! Martin…if you weren't an old friend of mine, I can tell you, you'd be dead by now. I swear it…" Kaoru's voice had diminished to a bone chilling whisper as she spoke.

Martin swallowed hard and said, "Yes I know…I know that…but, I just don't want to see you hurt…I…I love you Kaoru…I always have. I just, want you to be happy…" Martin stared down to the floor as a light blush crawled onto his cheeks.

Kaoru's eyes widened to saucers. She never thought she'd get this angry in her entire life. As his head was bowed down, trying to hide his embarrassment, Kaoru took the time to pull back her arm and paused for a moment before she drove her fist down unto the back of his head.

He yelped in pain and she was most disappointed as she watched him claw at the wall trying to regain his balance. She was hoping that it would've knocked him out. "I can't believe you…you honestly think I would care about such trivial matters now? Now that my parents are dead, were murdered and now that my sister, my beloved sister, is in danger. You really think that would faze me now?" Kaoru sighed and turned away form his hurt expression. "You should've said that five years ago Martin…"

Kaoru turned away form him and began walking back to Hikaru's room to spend some more time with her, sending a text to Agito saying that she wouldn't be going to the "celebration party".

OoOoO

_Do you think there's something wrong with her? Why didn't she come?_

_Why should I care?_

_I've been wondering that too, seeing as to how he can't seem to stop thinking about her either…_

_Wh-what are you talking about?! I'm not thinking about her! You are!!_

_Whatever you say Agito…whatever you say, hehe…_

…_Tch_

Agito sat up in his bed and stared out the window to the starry night sky and sighed. TI was true that he couldn't stop thinking about Kaoru. He couldn't stop thinking about how she saved him form his brother Kaito. The truth was that, he had no plan. He was exhausted, broken, literally, and feared the possibility of him being looked up in that damn cage again.

He was really grateful to her, but he still couldn't get over the amount of skill with which she saved him. He was quite sure that that level of skill was only attainable by continues train for years, months at least. There was just no way she could've gotten that good in only a couple weeks, a month tops. It just didn't make sense. The only thing he could think of was that she was already that good before they met her, but then there was the fact that she was such a cluts when she started, that was pure newbie traits. He just couldn't figure it out, and then the most confusing part was about how she knew those techniques. How did she know how to manipulate the properties of water? It's not enough to just know them, you have to really know them body and soul to be able to do those kinds of tricks. That sort of thing should've taken years to master to that level.

Not to mention, there was what those guys form Red Fraction said about that emblem. Did she really have it? How would she have gotten it if she did? Agito remembered sitting and watching her as she played wit a necklace that always hung around her neck. He didn't think she ever noticed that she was doing it, it just came naturally to her. He never saw the pendant, just the chain. Once, Akito had asked her about it, and she said that it was a present form her parents to her and her sister. She said that it was originally one pendant, but it could be separated and put back together, that's how it was made, so their parents figured that it was the best present for the twins.

He remembered the picture of the emblem and thought it that it could be possible that the pendant she spoke of was indeed the emblem, but he couldn't be sure until the pendants together.

Agito was slightly startled when someone barged into his room in a mad dash and skidded to a stop before him. It was Emily. "Agito!! It's terrible, Some storm riders have invaded the hospital! They were seen heading into Hikaru's room!! Kaoru's still in their with her sister!!" Emily looked like she was ready to cry. _WHAT!!! Could it be those bastards from Red Fraction? Those stupid Sore Losers!!! Dammit and I can't do anything!!_

OoOoO

"We have to stop them before they reach the hospital!! Faster Jasmine!!"

"Ugh Shut up!! I'm going at break neck speed here!! And you still haven't told me what we're doing!!"

"We have to stop those storm riders from reaching the hospital I said!!"

"Rei!!! Why…What!!! ARG!!!! WHAT'S GOING ON!!!!!"

"WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE A LIFE HERE JASMINE!!!"

" REI!!! Rei we have to stop!!! There's no point, we're too late!!! We can't even find them and we're so far from the hospital!! Just give up!! We can't help her!"

"No!! We have to try!!!"

"REI!! Listen to yourself!!! REI!!! WE CAN'T HELP HER!!!"

"Then what am I supposed to do!?!?! I'm supposed to be taking care of them, and I've been trying, but it's so hard... and now!! What am i Supposed to do Jazz?"

"Rei!! no one asked you to babysit these kids, and besides, do you really think that girl would be satified with her life the way she is now? Do you really think she'd be alright with living like that, constantly being protected by her syblings?"

"But..."

"Rei...there's no use, from my sources, they've already entered the hospital, there's nothing we can do."

"...FUCK!!!"

OoOoO

"You know Hikaru…things have really changed since the last five years. It's really sad…I can't…I can't believe that Martin is…" Kaoru sniffed and wiped away a tear.

She was about to rest her head on Hikaru's stomach when she heard a strange noise. She stood bolt up right and looked towards the door form which the noise came. Kaoru gasped as the door was suddenly kicked down by a rather large foot that was in cased in a very powerful looking pair of ATs.

Kaoru moved into a fighting stance but soon lost her enthusiasm as about fifteen other large, burly men appeared at the door and waltzed inside like it was their living room. Kaoru held strong in her stance, but knew that without her ATs, there was no hope. She prayed silently that she was the one they were after and not Hikaru.

The men all began to chuckled and crack their knuckles, making snide remarks about Kaoru's fighting stance. Once they began to get fed up with her stoic expression one of them moved to attack her, but in an instant she wasn't their.

"KAZU!!! LET ME GO!! LET ME GO!! HIKARU!! HIKARUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!" Kaoru kicked and screamed and Kazu carried her off away from room 305 at full speed.

"No!! It's too dangerous!! You can't do anything fro her now!! There's no point in letting them get both of you!!" HE shouted back at her as he kept running until they were outside of the hospital were some people were being evacuated.

Kazu had to drop her and grab her back as she attempted to run back into the Hospital. "NO!!! HIKARUUUUUU!!!! HIKARUUUUUU!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Kaoru was going hysterical and Kazu didn't know what to do. He was very relieved when Ikki came outside and told him that the storm riders were gone already.

"What!!! They're Gone!!! HOW COULD YOU!!! HOW COULD YOU LET THEM GO!!!WHYYYYY!!!!" Kaoru screamed at him as she hung unto the front of his shirt. Ikki looked scared and was at a loss for words.

He stuttered for a while but found his voice once he saw that Kaoru was ready to start shouting again. "Hikaru's still alive!! They took her to the emergency room!!" He blurted out as fast as he could and as soon as the words left his lips, Kaoru was gone, into the hospital faster than people should be able to go without ATs.

Kaoru ran as fast as she could and found the emergency room fairly quickly. She ran inside and felt her stomach roll over as she saw the state that her sister was in. She was hardly recognizable. Kaoru took note of all the cuts and gashes across her body, the paper hospital dress almost completely torn apart.

There was blood everywhere. Kaoru couldn't see one inch of her sister's skin that wasn't bruised and/or covered in blood. She also noticed that her sister pendant was gone. Her sister's beloved necklace that she never took off; the styled S that represented everything from their parents love for them, to their inseparability.

Kaoru smelt it coming before she felt it as she sank to floor, hacking up whatever was I her stomach. Kaoru's stomach kept contracting harshly and painfully even after it was completely empty. Kaoru's tears were flowing steadily now as she cried silently, unable to speak as her stomach made violent contractions.

One of the doctors held her up and took her outside to get some air. By the time Kaoru was outside, she wasn't hacking up air anymore and was ready to go back and be with her sister. The doctor was trying to convince her to stay outside but he got a page and had to take it, so that's when she slipped off.

Kaoru ran back into the room and was met by a second doctor who looked her straight in the eyes, sighed and shook his head. Kaoru could see behind him and watched as they finished zipping Hikaru's body up in a black plastic bag. By now, the rest of the team was there, waiting for her to come back form taking in fresh air and they all watched, unsure of what to do, neither of them had ever been in a situation like this before.

None of them could possibly understand what sort of pain Kaoru must've been going through as she stood there watching her twins sister's body being bagged and carted away. The doctor stood there for about a minute longer then turned to the rest of the team, nodded to them and walked back into the room, closing the heavy door behind him as if this was an everyday thing for him.

Kaoru stood there, shock still. She couldn't think, she couldn't breathe, it was surprising that she could even stand. Kaoru blinked as a single tear ran down her cheek. She blinked twice and sank to the floor still staring straight ahead at the door.

The rest of the team wasn't sure what to do, and they were somewhat glad that she wasn't going hysterical again. They, however, got too cocky and Ikki decided that it was time they regroup and head to Agito's room. He stood up and placed a hand on Kaoru's shoulder.

Kaoru looked up at him with blood shot eyes with rivers of tears flowing down them and said softly, "She's gone…Hikaru…Gone…gone…gone…" She was breathing heavily now. Inhaling and exhaling fast as if she had just run a marathon.

Ikki wasn't sure what was going on, but he was sure that something was wrong when she began to hyperventilate. Ringo had been messaging Agito telling him everything that was going on. When she told him about her hyperventilating he messaged her back telling them to take her to him. She blinked at it and told Ikki what he said. Ikki was glad for that response, begging for someone to take maters out of his hands as everyone seemed to be looking to him to handle it.

Ikki tried to lift Kaoru up and found that she was very light. She sat there in his arms hyperventilating still, but when he began to move away from the room, she freaked out. She went wild, kicking screaming, she was screaming in fluent Italian now, no one could understand her. Ikki had dropped her at leas twice before they even managed to start up to Agito's room.

Emily and Nakayama were crying loudly now, only adding more noise to the chaos while Ringo tried her best to get words out to Kaoru, words that she hoped would help calm her down. However, none of these words reached her, and all she could do was kick and scream. Half way thought the journey Ikki dropped her into Buccha's arms, giving up as he examined all his new bruises and cuts.

Buccha found it very difficult to kept her steady without suffocating her but they managed to get to Agito's room safely. Agito heard them coming by the time they were at the end of the corridor. That's how loud she was. People were sticking their heads out of their rooms curious as to what was going on.

The group tumbled into Agito's room and Buccha dropped Kaoru on the floor, not sorry at all as he examined all his cuts and scrapes.

Agito's eye widened to saucers as he watched her crying, kicking and screaming on the floor. The only thing he could catch in the fluent Italian was her sister's name. Without think he crawled out of his bed and managed to get over to her. Kaoru was on her back kicking and screaming, crying for her sister until she felt a harsh resounding slap across her face.

Agito kneeled over her with stern expression and looked down at her with a stoic expression as she quieted down. The room echoed with the sudden silence as the other watched in silence, amazed at her he managed to handle her so well.

Agito reached down and pulled her up with one hand and hugged her tightly, his one good arm around her waist. Kaoru soon melted away in tears again, but this time, she wasn't kicking or screaming. She just cried. Her soft crying had such a deep sorrow behind it that it chilled their very bones.

Kaoru wrapped her arms around Agito's neck and squeezed hard as she cried into his chest. Agito sat there calming stroking her hair silently as he held her up, not allowing her to fall back.

The two of them sat like that for a long time, in which time, the team members eventually left on Agito's command. He ensured them that they would be alright through messaging and told them to go home, but asked Ringo to bring a change of clothes for Kaoru. He doubted she would be leaving before morning.

A nurse had come in to check on him some time in the night and was very surprised to see him sitting on the floor, still awake as he stroked Kaoru's hair while she slept soundly in his arms.

She help get both of them into the bed without waking her, insisting that he lie down as well considering that his sudden movements had disturbed his bad leg. She promised to get them a double bed, but he declined, doubting that she would stay more than one night.

Agito sighed and decided that he should just swallow his pride for tonight and let her sleep. She deserved it. He looked into her sleeping face and sighed. It wasn't right. It just wasn't fair. Hikaru was almost ready to be released, and then this happens…_I can't possibly imagine what she must be going through…_

_There's nothing we can do except to be there for here right now Akito. _

_I know, I know…_

_Right now, we should just let her rest._

_I feel like i want to cry Agito... it's not fair! and she's so special I know she is!  
_

_Of course she is, but what i want to know is why she's so special, why do these things keep happening to her....?_

_...Agito, you know that i love her right? But I've been wondering, could it be that, you love her too?  
_

_If I didn't, do you think I would let her sleep in my bed_

_(chuckle) of course not...  
_

OoOoO

End

Hope you enjoyed it. Sorry it's so short, but I didn't want to drag it out too much. Ending on a sombre note here, but still please review.

JA NE


	10. Reconciliation and Revelations

Reconciliation and Revelations

Disclaimer : I do not own Air Gear

OoOoO

Dull jade green eyes fluttered open as a light breeze crawled through a near by window. The breeze grew stronger, supplying the battle field for a war between strands of contrast under the dismal, gray rays of early morning sunlight.

Kaoru blinked and stared up at the stark white ceiling. _I wonder if all of that was a dream...a nightmare more like..._ Kaoru thought. She closed her eyes and shook her head though as she noticed the presence of someone else in the bed beside her.

She opened her eyes and looked to her side and saw Agito as he slept peacefully beside her. She noticed that his hand was entangled in her hair, along with some strands of his own, and remembered the way his hands were gently caressing her long tresses of auburn hair that so resembled that of her sisters. Kaoru squeezed her eyes shut, the pain of remembering her sister, sharp and cold, but she forced herself to remember her sister, there was no use running from the truth.

Kaoru kept her eyes closed and imagined herself standing in front of her sister. Kaoru swallowed hard as she stared at her sister, with her long, curly auburn hair that reached the small of her back, her bright playful jade green eyes, her legs well toned from years of ballet and gymnastics, her button nose and small ears, her pink, slightly pouted lips, her healthy body. Kaoru looked over her sister in her head and sighed deeply. That was how her sister was supposed to be now. She was supposed to be alive and well. They were supposed to be having fun together, waiting until they were called back home to Italy when all was well and they could live happily together with their parents...but they weren't. They were supposed to be going to school together in Japan like regular high schoolers...but they weren't. Kaoru wasn't so supposed to be alone...but she is now, and it's all thanks to one entity.

_...Genesis_

Kaoru opened her eyes slowly. She decided that there was no time to waste on mourning bitterly for her family, not when she could be using that time to avenge them. Kaoru lay there beside Agito deep in her thoughts. She snapped out of it when she felt movement beside her and looked over to Agito to see that his eyes were just fluttering open. She wasted no time.

"Agito, what do you know of Genesis?" Agito blinked and furrowed his eyebrows. It was a sudden question and it took a while to process but what he got out of it was surprising in the least. He didn't know why she wanted know, or how she came to know of Genesis, but he was sure that it had to do with her sister's death.

Agito knew vengeful eyes when he saw them.

"What does Genesis have to do with anything?" He replied, folding his arms and staring up at her.

"My parents didn't just die in a car accident. They were murdered. They were murdered by the same people that killed Hikaru. After our first battle, I managed to get a clue out of one of the team members and he gave me this." Kaoru handed him Genesis' team sticker.

Agito's eyebrows furrowed even deeper if possible as he examined the sticker. "Why would Simca want anything from you? What do you have that she wants?"

"Who is Simca?" Kaoru was being stubborn, but all the same, he'd get his answers soon enough, because Agito was quite sure that she was hiding something from him. He had the idea from they first met, but now he was certain.

"Fuck. Simca...she's the leader of Genesis. Genesis is an AT team, and it's not one to screw around with either. Why would they be so interested in you?" He asked again as he looked up at her with a questioning stare.

Kaoru looked away from him for a bit before sitting on the bed and saying, "They took Hikaru's pendant...the other half to this one." Kaoru reached into the front of her shirt and pulled out a thin silver chain on which hung a silver styled 'R'.

Agito's eyes widen slightly as he took the pendant from her and examined it. It was exactly like what he had seen in the photo of the 'Singing Rain's' emblem that was shown to him by the members of 'Red Fraction'. He could just imagine the gold styled 'S' linked to the 'R' on her silver chain. That must've been what was taken, but why would they want that? _Could it be that it really isn't a legend...what can Simca gain from obtaining the emblem...the Fuck is going!? _Agito thought as he stared into space, lost in his thoughts.

_Simca is aiming to collect all the kings and their regalia. If the 'Singing Rain' was able to go __against the 'Sleeping Forest', then they must've had at least one regalia and king on their side. That must be what she's after...Fuck...but how does this link to Kaoru's recent misfortunes...? _"Kaoru...there's something else you're not telling me..."

Agito stared up at Kaoru with a stern piercing stare that made her look away from him. She didn't look at him for a long time and tried to ignore his constant staring. "If you want me to help you, you have to tell me everything." Agito said, his patience wearing thin.

Kaoru glanced at him and sighed heavily. "Promise that you won't interrupt me before I'm done." she looked at him pointedly and waited for his sigh, then his curt nod and began. "When we were small, and we lived in Italy with our parents, Hikaru and I that is, we did everything together. We did swimming, ballet, karate, gymnastics, you name it, but our favourite, was Motor-Skating. Back home that's what it was called. We didn't know about teams and emblems, or kings of roads and their regalia or any of that, we just rode for the fun of it. Riding was a way of life back in Italy. The pendants were a gift to us from our parents when we turn fifteen earlier this year, April. They told us that they were very important and that we should hold on to it, even in death. We cherished these pendants...and now someone has stolen Hikaru's..." Kaoru was trembling, whether it was out of anger or despair, Agito couldn't tell at the time.

"Who taught you to ride?" Agito asked her softly, feeling that getting heated wasn't the best solution at the time. That would be like throwing liquid oxygen on an open flame.

"Our parents coached us, but other wise we taught ourselves. We kept begging them to join us, but they always refused sternly. Later on we both realized that mom walked with a limp all the time and dad had a long nasty burn scar along his right leg on which he limped slightly too." Kaoru said. She was staring out the window.

"Kaoru...i think that your parents were..." Agito didn't get to finish as Ikki burst through the door shouting an unpleasant good morning. "The FUCK!!! You fucking crow-shit! What do you want?!" Agito was obviously annoyed at being disturbed, not to mention his time alone with Kaoru seemed as though it would be cut short as the rest of the team members filed in behind him along with someone he didn't know. He seemed out of place and none of the team members seemed to be really paying him much mind as they all made a semi circle around Agito's bed. The boy seemed shy somewhat and maybe a bit abashed. Agito silently wondered what he was doing in here if no one seemed to know him. There was one however.

Kaoru seemed to know him pretty well.

All Agito caught sight of before Kaoru was being held down by Ringo and Emily was when she landed a firm fist somewhere along his jaw line, shouting something in Italian that they didn't understand.

"What the hell!!!" Emily shouted as she fought to keep Kaoru at bay.

"SHUT UP!!! Let me GOO!!! Let me at him!! Let me at him!!! You traitor!!! How dare you show your face to me again after what happened!! How DARE YOU?!!" Kaoru was livid and no one understood why except for the two of them.

"Kaoru!! Kaoru please!! Hear me out!!! Listen! I quit Genesis!! I want to be a part of Kogarasumaru now!!" Martin said, pleading with her as he rubbed his sore jaw.

"You were a part of Genesis?!" Ikki shouted and jumped to Martin's side immediately. "Do you know Simca? Have you ever seen her before?! What's she like! Have you ever seen her naked!? Aw man how could you quit and leave Simca?!!" Ikki wasn't the only one who seemed to think that Genesis was 'the shit' even Kazu and Buccha were praising their great achievements.

Kaoru couldn't take it much longer, she had to be heard. "GENESIS KILLED HIKARU!!!" Kaoru's scream was so loud that it echoed over many times in the silence that ensued. She didn't bother to wait for the information to settle in their minds. She shrugged Ringo and Emily off of her and continued. "and they killed my parents too."

"You're parents died in a car accident didn't they?" Kazu asked without thinking.

"No...they were murdered. That was no accident at all. Not only did they steal my parents and my sister away from me but they stole her necklace too, a necklace that was very important to both of us. The other half to this." She took out her pendant to show to them. Ringo took hold of it sharply and inspected it.

"No way...this is the emblem for the "Singing Rain"...how did you get it? I heard there was only one in existence." Ringo said looking at Kaoru suspiciously.

"Our parents gave them to us for our fifteenth birthday. They told us to cherish them, and we did, but now one has been stolen by Genesis. Now my question is why. Why do they need the emblem? Why must I be left without parents, without my sibling, all alone...why, Martin?" Kaoru turned to Martin with her hands balled into fists and her lips pursed.

Martin looked taken aback at the sudden mention of his name and hesitated slightly. He seemed uneasy and very flustered but he soon replied. "Genesis needs the emblem in order to get the regalia."

"WAIT!!! You two know each other?!!" Ikki, the slowest of the group only just now seemed to realize that.

Martin and Kaoru looked at him like he was stupid. (no use in prettying up the sentence for his sake.)

"Maybe, that's where I should start..." Martin said before Kaoru could say anything and began to speak. "Kaoru and I grew up together in Italy where we were both very good at AT, but back home it was called..." He was rudely interrupted however.

"WHAT!!!! Kaoru!! You said you've never ridden AT before!!!" Ringo shouted turning to Kaoru suddenly.

"How dare you lie to me!! The king of..."

"We trusted you Kaoru..."

"I always knew you were too good to start with..."

Kaoru was beginning to be overwhelmed by all the confusion in the air. Everything and everyone was confused, no one knew what was really going on, people were trying to explain, and people were asking questions, it was just noise around her. Kaoru wasn't sure how much more of it she could take. They kept asking her why she lied and how come she never showed off her talents and how she knew Martin, and why Genesis was brought into the mix.

Kaoru was about to scream again when someone beat her to it. "HEY!!! YOU FUCKING MORONS! SHUT THE HELL UP!!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP WITH ALL THIS SHITTY NOISE?! FUCK!!" Agito shouted from under his covers. She wasn't sure when he had decided to go back to sleep, maybe it was when his nurse slipped in unnoticed and gave him his medication. Kaoru watched the nurse slip out of sight stealthily as if she was a spy of some sorts.

The room was quiet now thanks to Agito. Kaoru sighed and told everyone to sit down. Kaoru watched surprised as they all sat around her like little children would sit around a story teller at the day care centre. She sighed as she tried to sort everything she knew in her head before she let out a long breath and began. "Let's start from how I know Martin. Martin and I grew up in Italy together, and yes it is true that we used to ride AT together, but back home it was called Motor-Skating. We didn't know about emblems and teams and all that jazz, riding was a way of life. Hikaru rode too, but she wasn't nearly as good as Martin and I were. We were considered the Dare-Devils of the town. But five years ago he moved away to Japan and I hadn't heard from him since until now." Kaoru stopped, waiting for any questions.

Emily raised her hand and Kaoru sweat-dropped, not actually expecting her to raise her hand. "Were you two together?"

Kaoru face remained passive while Martin's became a tomato. Literally...a tomato... "No we weren't, never have probably never will..." The way she said it so nonchalantly you could almost see the razor sharpness of each word stabbing Martin harshly.

"Why did your parents have the emblem of the "Singing Rain"?" Ringo asked. She looked strangely serious for someone who didn't even ride, or so thought Kaoru.

"I don't know..." Kaoru said, her tone dulling slightly as she reflected on her own ignorance.

"Your parents had to be the last living members of the 'Singing Rain'" Kaoru turned around to look at Agito and furrowed her eye brows listening carefully as he explained his theory, "When you said that your parents coached your training, I figured, when you described the burns on your fathers legs it became obvious, and when I remembered how you got me out of that pinch with that bastard after the Behemoth battle, it became absolute. There's no way your parents are not the last members of the "Singing Rain"." Agito explained slowly as if he were talking to retards, making sure they understood his every word.

"Then that must be why Simca is after you...That team had two regalia and two kings. I know that for a fact. Simca must after those then...but now that all the members are dead, only the regalia are left..." Ringo seemed to be musing to herself, deep in thought and failed to notice Ikki flying towards her.

Ringo screamed as Ikki tackled her, sending them both to the floor. "How dare you speak ill of Simca-san!!! I won't forgive you!!" Ikki sat their on top of Ringo feeling up her breasts and shouting into the mid morning air. Ringo, Emily and Kaoru all pulled back their arms the same time and hit Ikki's face at the same time sending him flying across the room and out the window.

"AS I WAS SAYING..."Ringo said firmly, dusting herself off as a vein pulsed vehemently in her forehead. "IF all the kings are dead, then that only leaves the regalia...but I don't understand...why do they need the emblem?"

"It is because they need the emblem to get to the regalia." Martin said, pitching in at last.

"What do you mean?" Kaoru asked not understanding entirely.

"I don't really know myself, all I was told was to get the emblem from you as soon as possible..." Martin trailed off as he noticed the look on Kaoru's face and noticed it's slow transformation from calm to livid.

She took a moment and calmed down again. "So pretty much, what's going on here, is that, my parents left us the emblem, half of it was stolen along with Hikaru's life and they, being Genesis, need it to find the Regalia..."

"They already know where the Singing Regalia is, but they have yet to find the Raining Regalia." Martin said. "Oh, and also, I over heard them talking about the way the Raining Regalia functions, and to my surprise, it turns out that, they were probably talking about you're old ATs Kaoru. I also over heard Simca-san talking about one of the twins being king material..."

There was silence for a long while, and while that silence echoed around her, Kaoru had the information she just learned echoing around in her head as she sorted through and sifted out what from what. She soon came to one realization and blurted it out before she could stop herself. "My family was killed...over a pair of shoes..."

"I can't believe that my family is dead, over a pair of shoes...Can you believe that? Huh..." The team watched, not knowing what to say as Kaoru stood their contemplating, her feeling of anger and sadness brewing 'til it became a pot full of vengeance. Agito could tell what she was thinking and knew that the topic should change, and soon.

"What are you doing here anyway?" It was abrupt and out of context but it did the trick. Kaoru looked up at Agito then followed his gaze to Martin.

"Yeah, that's right...why are you here?" She didn't sound angry at him anymore but her voice was trembling with anger not directed to him.

Martin seemed as though he had been caught off his guard. He was saved however when Kazu said, "He appeared out of no where and ask Ikki if he could be in team Kogarasumaru."

Kaoru turned to look at him and before she could say anything Martin went down on his knees in front of her and began to plead with her. "Kaoru, please hear me out first! Don't reject me immediately, just hear me out ok?!" Martin looked up at her waiting for a response.

Kaoru took some time in thinking about it but soon she was just staring off into space, not looking at him, not saying anything as she tapped her foot on the floor, her arms folded. Martin took that as a yes and sighed before beginning. "I quit Genesis. After what they did to Hikaru...I...couldn't stay with them any longer. It was hard staying with them, they were always talking about getting the regalia and becoming stronger and all that junk. It drove me crazy! They're so power hungry and greedy and just not worth it. I decided that I would be of more help to you up close...so I quit and decided to join Kogarasumaru instead. Please Kaoru, all the other members are ok with it, they just need me to show that I'm worthy. Everyone's ok with it except you."

"I'm not Fucking happy about it! And I won't be until I see that you're even worth my time shit head." Agito said from his place in bed. Despite the fact that he was injured and could hardly move. He was still intimidating.

"Ugh, well yes, I'll be sure to show my worth, as long as you accept me Kaoru." Martin was pleading with her now and seemed really determined.

Kaoru sighed and said, "I'm not the leader of the team. It's not my decision to make." She refused to look up at him and completely ignored him as he hugged her tightly.

"Thank you thank you thank you!!! I love you!!! I LOVE YOU!!!" a large vain was pulsing incessantly on Kaoru's forehead and just before she'd had enough, something heavy and blunt flew past her ear and dug itself into Martin's face.

Kaoru blinked while the rest of the room went quiet as Martin slid down to the floor half unconscious, the sheathed pocket knife falling from the dent it made in his face to clatter loudly on the floor. Kaoru looked behind her and saw Agito staring out the window with a small smirk gracing his lips as he folded his arms and laid back comfortably in his hospital bed.

She shook her head with a slight smirk and a chuckle as Agito began to whistle a dead tuneless melody. Kaoru Ignored the rest of the team and stepped out of way as they all ran to see if Martin was ok. She walked over to Agito's bed and leaned against it, going deep into her thoughts while the ret of the team members cheered and made noise seeing as to how Martin was now almost sure to be in team Kogarasumaru.

Kaoru was deep in thought as she ran over all the information in her head and realized that there was still one little detail that was unclear. One important detail that would most likely decide her next course of action. "Agito, why do you think Genesis wants the Regalias? Why were my parents trying to hide the Regalia from them?"

Agito looked down at her and though for a moment before he began.

"A Regalia is a powerful piece of equipment. Fuck, placed in the wrong hands, All sorts of shit could happen. Not to mention the current Sleeping Forest is most likely not too fond of Simca's movements. I don't know what the Fuck they're gonna do about it now, in this stage of the game, but I'm fucking sure that if Genesis gets hold of those Regalia, a war is gonna start up. A war between those two teams would affect the entire AT world. So basically, you've got the job of preventing fucking World War III. Shit, sucks to be you!" Agito said grinning malevolently at Kaoru.

Kaoru turned to him and blinked. She was thinking through everything that had just been said. "You know what...you're right...I do don't I? My parents hid those regalia and gave us the emblem for good reason. They were trying to prevent a repeat of that terrible event that left them crippled and their team mates dead. That mission has been passed down to me and I have an obligation to fulfill it. There's no point in searching for revenge, revenge is nothing but a vicious cycle...I have to fight, not for their lives, but for what their lives meant." Kaoru seemed to have been in a trance as she spoke, speaking more to herself than to anyone else. She and Agito were talking loudly enough for the whole team to hear and soon they were listening to every word. She seemed to snap out of it and then turned to her team members and said, "Will you all help me? Will you help me find the Regalias before Genesis?" Kaoru held out her hand face down, waiting for their hands to join in as well.

There was a pause as the others looked at each other. Ringo was the first to reply. "I'll help you Kaoru-chan." She smiled brightly and placed her hand on top of Kaoru's.

Ikki grinned and said, "You'd better be grateful, it's everyday I'll pick a tomb-boy like you over a babe like Simca!" He also place his hand on top of her with a little more force than was needed. Kaoru sweat dropped at his answer but smiled all the same.

"Same here!" Onigiri said as he placed his hand on top of the steadily growing pile.

"I'll help in whatever way I can. I'm not strong like Ikki and I'm not smart like Agito, but I'm sure there's something I'll be able to do." Kazu said as he placed his hand on top too.

"If Kazu goes then I go!" Emily immediately placed her hand on top over Kazu's, blushing darkly as they're bare skin met.

"I believe that your goals are worth pursuing. I will help as well." Buccha placed his over sized hand on top of the pile as well and Kaoru noted how it seemed to have sunk a bit.

"I will help too, if there is anything I can do. I will try my best..." Nakayama said placing her hand on top.

"I think you know where my elegance lies." Martin said with a smirk as he placed his hand on top, the tissue sticking out of his bleeding nose ruining the supposedly 'cool' look.

Kaoru smiled and at them all and looked over at her shoulder at Agito. "Agito?"

"Do I seriously have to answer that fucking question?" He said. It was barely audible and half of the members didn't hear, only Martin, Kaoru and Ringo heard what he said clearly, those three being closest to his bed. Kaoru smiled softly, Ringo looked taken aback and Martin seemed pissed and somewhat defeated. (he thought that Agito's answer was cooler than his...)

The next half an hour was spent deciding on Martin's test. Just like Kaoru, he had to go through a test of sorts to make sure that he was up to standards in order to join team Kogarasumaru. It was decided that Kaoru would be allowed to decide on what the test was, seeing as to how they knew each other and all. Kaoru seemed very enthusiastic about her new appointment and that seemed to scare Martin some what. After that everyone began to complain about being hungry considering that it was now noon and decided to go get something to eat after a nurse brought food for Agito's lunch and noticed how much special treatment he was getting from his nurses as his lunch looked like something home made rather than the nasty hospital food they usually saw. (you know like in shojou manga when a girl brings home made food for the guys she likes, yeah something like that, lol)

"SO then where should be go?"

"Let's go to McDonalds!!"

"No way!! Burger King!!"

"NO!!!!"

"Kaoru, aren't you coming?" Emily asked as she headed to the door with Nakayama beside her, behind the rest of the group.

"Hmm? Oh, no it's ok, I'll stay here and mooch off of this guys food." She grinned as she ignored Agito's retort to her comment.

Emily chuckled and mumbled something seemingly dark and evil to Nakayama that made her blush and mumble that she didn't think it was like that before she skipped off. Nakayama looked over at the two apologetically and said bye as she left.

Kaoru waved energetically and smiled brightly. She waited until the door closed before she let her expression fall. She was exhausted. It was only noon and she already felt as if she'd had all she could take for the day.

She sat on the edge of Agito's bed and picked a fried dumpling out of his plate and popped it into her mouth before he could snatch it back. A vein pulsed in Agito's forehead as he glared at her and said, "Why did you really decide to stay?" Kaoru didn't answer him. She didn't look at him either. He watched her get up and walk over to the side of the room where all the weird doctor stuff was kept and watched her search for something. He furrowed his eye brows as he watched her pull out a pair of scissors.

"What are you doing?"

Kaoru turned around to face Agito, not bothering the hide the pair of scissors in her hand. "I'm no coward, so don't worry." Kaoru said. Her tone sent shivers down Agito's spine. He'd never heard her speak like that before, not to mention how it changed so suddenly. Even after going to Iraq and back with her, he'd never heard her voice quite like this. It was cold and hard, but hollow and echoing at the same time.

He could say nothing as she turned away from him and walked to the window on the far side of the room. Agito sat up as he watched her carefully. He was surprised somewhat. He knew that she would revert to this form once the team was gone, he knew that she would be all doom and gloom again, she couldn't help it and it didn't surprise him, what surprised him was how much it was affecting him. He watched her, unable to move as she took her hair and swung it over her shoulder. She held it at the base of her neck where her elastic band held it together and cut just above her hand.

Agito watched, somewhat doleful, as she held her ostracized hair out of the window and let the none time breeze carry it out of her hands and away into the sky. He watched as the breeze blew what was left of her hair, showing him her bare neck, and looked away as he noticed the single tear that had been making it's way down her cheek.

_Agito!! Do something!! She looks so sad! I can't stand to see her like this!_

_Aww Fuck!! What the hell am I supposed to do huh?!_

_I don't know!! Just make her cheer up!!_

_That ain't gonna happen!! How do you expect her to be able to smile all the time after all that's happened?! I hate seeing her like this just as much as you do but there's nothing we can do about it!!!_

_But..._

_The only thing can do is be there for her, we've had this conversation already Akito._

_…_

"Kaoru...?" Agito looked up at Kaoru noticed that the tears were flowing freely now. Kaoru seemed to snap out of a trance of some sorts and looked over at him.

"oh..." she began to wipe away her tears vigorously and said, "I'm sorry...don't worry about me...I'll be smiling in a bit...I'll get working on Martin's test soon, just give me a minute..." She sniffed and continued wiping away her tears, but it was to no avail.

Agito looked angry somewhat as he heard her words. He looked down at his sheets for a bit, his hands balling up into fists. He looked up at her again and said, "Hey! Haven't you realized yet that I'm not one of those idiots that you always have to smile for? Fuck! I don't want to see any fake smiles on your face anyway. They just piss me off!" He looked away from her as she looked at him and waited for her response.

There was silence for a while, but then Agito heard sobbing. He looked over at Kaoru and saw that she was crying, her hands still under her eyes but not moving, allowing tears to over and under them. "Thank you...Agito..." She muttered out.

"Cheh...whatever..." Agito watched her standing there, crying her eyes out and noticed that her knees were wobbling. "If you don't come over to the bed you're going to fall..." he said, his voice stoic and his face contorted into a sort of fake annoyed look, but his eyes gave him away as they were full of concern for her.

Kaoru looked over at him and smiled a watery smile before she stumbled over to the reaching him just after he put his empty food tray on the table beside the bed. He was smart in doing so as Kaoru collapsed onto her knees and lay her head on his lap and began to wail. He sighed heavily as her tears began to soak through his sheets again. He reached out and began to smooth down her now extremely short auburn locks.

Agito sighed heavily and looked up at the roof. Agito may have seemed really calm during the talk about Genesis and the Singing Rain, but the truth was that he was really pissed. He was so angry, he is really pissed. He balled his free hand into a fist and closed his eye trying to stay calm while he listened to Kaoru's crying. Kaoru, aside from Akito, was the only person he'd ever felt so impelled to protect. Even before he'd seen her like this, before she showed any signs of needing any sort of protection, he felt compelled to protect her. He felt so angry, he was livid as he though about Genesis, and Simca. He would definitely help her find the Regalias, most definitely.

_Agito? You really are going to protect her with everything you've got aren't you?_

_What the hell are you talking about!? That idiot doesn't need anybody!! she's to stubborn..._

_Oh, then why is she crying in your lap then? And why are you letting her?_

_SHUT UP!!!_

_He he he... you're so silly Agito-kun!!_

_…grr_

OoOoO

END

I hope you enjoyed this last chapter, please review, and I'm sry it took so long to finish it, school's not easy to keep up with sometimes, but I'll manage don't worry, just bare in mind, the more reviews I get from you people, the more I'll write!!

JA NE


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